tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6404213734421441602024-03-13T13:56:58.831+09:00Roboseyoone expat's life in KoreaRoboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.comBlogger1278125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-21461294406311053532024-02-15T19:16:00.007+09:002024-02-19T00:22:47.795+09:00Poetry Time: Way too many Roses Are Red poems, for Valentine's Day<p><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">This post is also shared on Archive Of Our Own (<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/53811466" target="_blank">Link here; you'll have to click an "agree" button to view</a>) where I sometimes publish my creative writing.</span></p><p><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">On Feb 14th, 2024, I went a little bananas writing funny "Roses are red, Violets are blue" poems on different social media websites. I'm collecting them here in the hope that they'll make some people laugh.</span></p><div id="chapters" role="article" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "GNU Unifont", Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.12px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><h3 class="landmark heading" id="work" style="border: 0px; clear: both; color: transparent; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 400; height: 0px; line-height: 0; list-style: none; margin: 0px; opacity: 0; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Work Text:</h3></div>
Here is the one that started it all: <div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Violets are blue </div><div>This poem is too short. </div><div><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Hot metal bends </div><div>Heap happy heart day </div><div>To all of my friends. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>To my friend taking public transit: </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>A grandmother fusses </div><div>It's good to use light rail </div><div>And tax funded busses. </div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Me cookie monster </div><div>You heart is like cookie. </div><div>Om nom nom nom nom nom nom </div><div>Me no rhyme. </div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>And gravity pulls </div><div>Expect more of these poems </div><div>'Cause I'm on a roll! </div><div><br /></div><div><i>I live in Korea, so it is actually the 15th for me when my North American friends are still celebrating Valentine's Day. </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>It's Valentine's Day! </div><div>(Though not for me </div><div>'cause
I live far far away) </div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>And green is the lime </div><div>It's hard to find rhymes </div><div>For International Date Line. </div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Sponges are porous </div><div>You're charming and funny </div><div>Lots more than just gorgeous. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>To my friend who's a teacher: </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Violets are blue </div><div>I bet tons of your students </div><div>Have crushes on you! </div><div><br /></div><div><i>To my friend who is interested in medieval cultures: </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Witchcraft meant immolation </div><div>I'd haunt your descendants </div><div>For twelve generations! </div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>For breakfast there's porridge </div><div>I love you, and only </div><div>Part-way 'cause you're gorgeous. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>To a friend who lives far away: </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Up high is the moon </div><div>I wish I could visit </div><div>Perhaps we could spoon. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>On the page of a FB group supporting LGBTQ+ folks in a religious institution: </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>White and other shades too </div><div>God has such love for </div><div>Each queer soul, and for you! </div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Meat Loaf sang with passion </div><div>Hope your V-Day's loaded </div><div>With smoochin' and smashin'! </div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>A hit dog will yelp </div><div>I'm trapped in this rhyme scheme </div><div>Please someone send help! </div><div><br /></div><div><i>My facebook friend Ron, who has been an excellent writer for many years, wrote this reply to the poem above:</i></div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div>A rose is red and sugar surely sweet </div><div>And dogs will yelp when struck down in the street</div><div>Your rhyme scheme lacks but two iambic feet</div><div>To pass for Shakespeare, which is kinda neat!</div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;"> </div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"> <i>My reply was as follows:</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Roses are red</div><div style="text-align: left;">You speak of pentameter!</div><div style="text-align: left;">My poetry's blushing</div><div style="text-align: left;">From your way of scanning her! </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>that little conversation used a lot of lingo that is mostly used in poetry discussions to talk about rhyme and rhythm of poetry. For a full explanation, jump to the bottom of this article.</i></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;"> </div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div><i>The conspiracy theories amuse me trio: </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Not one replicant dreams </div><div>Explain to me this: </div><div>Jet fuel can't melt steel beams! </div><div><br /></div><div>Violets are blue </div><div>But they're just gray to me </div><div>Ever since the vaccine </div><div>Turned my eyes to 5G! </div><div><br /></div><div>Daisies are white </div><div>Storage goes in the basement </div><div>Paul McCartney's a fake </div><div>Doppelgänger replacement! </div><div><br /></div><div><i>In reference to a very out-of-date Covid meme: </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Dancers move so adroitly </div><div>Don't spend your Valentine's Day </div><div>Talking moistly </div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>I thought that I'd heard it all </div><div>You are the best </div><div>And that's incontrovertible </div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Sugar pills are placebos </div><div>I didn't think this one through </div><div>Bulbous bouffant, Gazebo! </div><div><br /></div><div>(that last one was a reference to a comedy sketch by The Vestibules: you can enjoy the zany video here.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>The buffalo roams </div><div>The word Valentine's too long </div><div>To fit such short poems </div><div><br /></div><div><i>These next two are political... skip them if you don't like politics in your poetry, though I should add that poetry is often political, and one group of people that dictators put in prison is writers, because writers have the power to stir the people up into a movement, and many good poets around the world, and through history, have spent time in jail or in exile because their poetry, or stories, or essays, ruffled the wrong (or right!) feathers.</i></div><div> </div><div>Roses are red </div><div>D.J. Trump's apoplectic </div><div>Hope your red heart day </div><div>Is calm and not hectic </div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Apes do not have a tail </div><div>I'm getting more certain </div><div>Trump's going to iforgothowthisoneended </div><div><br /></div><div><i>The next two are also connected. </i></div><div><i>On Seduction and Wooing in the Information Age </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Fellas, please don't be rude </div><div>Don't request unexpectedly </div><div>Pictures of boobs </div><div><br /></div><div>Violets are blue </div><div>Red and white for most wines </div><div>If you're in such a sort </div><div>Of relationship, fine! </div><div><br /></div><div><i>This next one is also slightly related to the last two: </i></div><div><i>For my feminist friends on Valentine's Day </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>It's fun at a party </div><div>Another fun thing: </div><div>Smashing the patriarchy! </div><div><br /></div><div><i>The next two are also connected: </i></div><div><i>To Those Lonely on Valentine's Day </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Today some are lonely </div><div>Could be any reason: </div><div>Not just 'cause you're homely </div><div><br /></div><div>If today you are singing </div><div>A solitaire tune </div><div>For a fee I'll come over </div><div>And be little spoon </div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>For some, Valentine's terrible </div><div><a href="https://youtu.be/1kLRFWIlUOI?si=xTlRYFfjQ4jxMLbD" target="_blank">Have some doggies and babies </a></div><div>To make the day bearable. </div><div><br /></div><div>(have some doggies and babies, then)</div>
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<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><i>An Anti-Valentine: </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Duct tape works in a pinch </div><div>You're a guff-swifting </div><div>Sick sucky pup, Mr. Grinch! </div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>This isn't a bluff: </div><div>These all are original </div><div>And done off the cuff </div><div><br /></div><div><i>The Grand Finale: </i></div><div><i>How to Celebrate Valentine's Day </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Roses are red </div><div>Some folks play it up </div><div>With dozens of roses </div><div>And dinners and stuff </div><div><br /></div><div>Violets are blue </div><div>And some take it low-key </div><div>Whatever you like </div><div>Even love karaoke! </div><div><br /></div><div>Daisies are white </div><div>And garbage is stinky </div><div>Some head for the bedroom </div><div>With toys to get kinky </div><div><br /></div><div>Marigolds orange </div><div>And cold penguins huddle </div><div>Some people like spooning </div><div>And have a good cuddle. </div><div><br /></div><div>Whatever your shade, </div><div>Make it mellow or frantic </div><div>There's someone who loves you </div><div>Platonic or romantic. </div><div><br /></div><div>I hope you enjoyed my poems, and if you celebrate it, I hope you had a great Valentine's day. If you don't, I hope you had a great random day in the middle of February with no special importance. </div><div><br /></div><div>Love Rob</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*Here is a little explanation about the poetic lingo used in those poems up above:</div><div><br /></div>
Notes on these three poems, in case it's been a long time since you were in English class: <div><br /></div><div><b>Scanning</b> discusses if a line of poetry fits a rhythm pattern. If a poem <b>scans,</b> it fits its pattern perfectly. If it doesn't scan, the pattern misses. Some poets write lines that don't scan on purpose, for various reasons.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Iambic </b>when a poem has an <i>unstressed/STRESSED</i> pattern, we call it <b>iambic</b>. There are other patterns, (go google <i>poetry meter</i> to learn them). When a poem's rhythm goes, <i>"da DUM da DUM da DUM"</i> it's iambic. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Feet</b> tell us how many times a line of poetry repeats its pattern. Three repeats per line means three feet. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Pentameter</b> - if a line has five repeats or five feet, it's <i>pentameter</i>, so <i>iambic pentameter</i> goes "<i>da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM.</i>" The common stress patterns of English words mean that English falls into <i>iambic pentameter</i> really easily, and a lot, like, a LOT of English poetry is in <i>Iambic Pentameter</i>, including most of William Shakespeare's work. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>"Roses are red"</b> poems often have <i>three feet.</i> My friend's reply is written in <i>Iambic Pentameter</i>, and he is correct that with two more iambic feet (another da DUM da DUM) the poems would be in <i>Iambic Pentameter</i> -- Shakespeare's favorite meter to use. </div><div><br /></div><div>My last reply says my poetry's blushing, as a pun on the word scan, which sometimes means checking the rhythm of a poem, and sometimes means looking something up and down.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-88645638180241242802024-01-02T10:32:00.002+09:002024-01-02T10:49:54.129+09:00Korean Les Miserables<p> I saw <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/07/26/entertainment/musicPerformance/Korea-Seoul-Busan/20230726145535516.html" target="_blank">Korean Les Miserables</a>!</p><p>Wifeoseyo got us tickets for the January 1st matinee, and Juniorseyo got to learn the amazing story of Jean Valjean and the people who sing their dialogues.</p><p>I'm a little jokey, but the show was seriously impressive. There were some moments of staging that surprised me, even after having watched the Les Miserables anniversary dvd, the movie, the other movie, the other other movie, and the other other other movie, and memorized the soundtrack forwards and backwards as a teen in the 1990s, basically learning how to sing with a vibrato from imitating Colm Wilkinson... and then tormenting my family with that vibrato for every shower until I moved out.</p><p>Here is the cast I saw:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivmZYtgW0uMxaNzqfGxBsgAshh34Smmu6MZutevIdujwHhgpq9r2MQguuS44CoPKkDgNpW_qkgGHDeps4DurM7Zn67j2ubX0oImgo88i48sgPDufqZygfd_AyeS2WC3fyjX_SsfJRw1xLpWNlXXjjo3mAXIwJn5HnvuOM1C9kiOO34ZM0FLPhjwe627T_t/s4000/2024-01-01%2015.44.41-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivmZYtgW0uMxaNzqfGxBsgAshh34Smmu6MZutevIdujwHhgpq9r2MQguuS44CoPKkDgNpW_qkgGHDeps4DurM7Zn67j2ubX0oImgo88i48sgPDufqZygfd_AyeS2WC3fyjX_SsfJRw1xLpWNlXXjjo3mAXIwJn5HnvuOM1C9kiOO34ZM0FLPhjwe627T_t/s320/2024-01-01%2015.44.41-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>Jean Valjean was good, Javert was very very good, but the two who stole the show for me were Thenardier ("Master of the house") and Eponine ("On my own") -- Eponine was played by Kim Soo-ha, who... I don't know what else to say except she's the real deal. Eponine has always been my favorite character in Les Miserables, be it book, movie, other movie, other other movie, other other other movie, or musical. Her death scene (sorry: spoilers for a book written in 1832...) is the scene that always makes me cry. (Yeah I'll admit it. Manly men cry manly tears.) Ms. Kim went so effortlessly from sweet, aegyo-style to "feigned carefree street urchin" to "doomed, tragic, forlorn would-be lover" in her acting, and her vocals were... yeah. They were on point.</p><p>Thenardier was the other show-stopper. Thenardier's role goes from comical (as a crooked hotel keeper) to suspicious (as a career criminal in Paris) to terrifying and even demonic ("Dog Eats Dog" pickpocketing corpses after the failed uprising) to pathetic (at the Marius and Cosette's wedding) over the course of the musical, and 임기흥 (Lim Gi-heung) lit up the stage with all those moods, with 박준면 (Park Joon-myeon) holding her own admirably as his opposite, Madame Thenardier. The way he moved, the sliminess and pathos. He reminded me, oddly, but poignantly, of a lot of older men of his generation here in Korea -- who grew up, like him, in poverty, and developed the same dishonest hardscrabble survival skills: those characters you see in movies (and hope you don't meet in life) who will steal your pension and blow it on bad investments and sex workers before looking for their next mark, all with that sad, hang-dog face of a person who was abandoned by the system before they started exploiting it for their own gain.<br /><br />The whole show was performed in Korean, which didn't really matter to me because (as I said) in the '90s I learned the whole dang musical from front to back and back to front: this was less bewildering than seeing Billy Elliot or Wicked or Jekyll and Hyde all in Korean (musicals I don't know back to front).</p><p>Now, there's something to be said for seeing a musical in a language you can't follow 100%, just because in the same way they say blind people compensate for their blindness with sensitivity in other senses, not being able to follow the lyrics (and normally I am VERY MUCH a lyrics guy), it heightens my awareness of costume, lighting, acting, choreography, staging, and all the rest. I'd be able to talk about that stuff in more depth with the shows I didn't know back to front (I did always do a little reading up beforehand), just because I was paying so much attention to the other elements to keep up.</p><p>Anyway, if you can understand sung Korean and love musical theater and powerhouse performances, or if you love <a href="https://www.globalinterpark.com/product/13000922?prdNo=13000922&lang=en" target="_blank">Les Miserables no matter, catch a showing while you can! It's playing at the Blue Square theater over the hill from Itaewon</a>.</p><p>Two things sat a little weird with me...</p><p>One was Javert's suicide song... performing a musical in which one of the main characters ends his own life by jumping off a bridge... in a city where there is a serious suicide problem involving people ending their lives by jumping off Seoul's various bridges... kind of sat wrong.</p><p>The other thing was, in the theater lobby, as they often do, they'd set up little photo-op mini-stages. On one floor, there was a barricade you could climb up, and be photographed holding the iconic red flag. Coolcoolcool.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRY7HpVbDRacC7ZNKwLyXbj2hMaoXhkAYjebdfwHLNt1qDnlfhBGTJ1P1yAanp0CznXk1HnC_cqH3re2K7HHZ9IT53dvQwo477PIMfY1EIFNAH0ydzQ6pgs0Nyx7yfRDxCIDY_qX91KfsoHb_f_8zelSnj4S7VH23lDEskkUlcb3mddXVkEywWrBu1Xa3I/s4000/2024-01-01%2017.10.57.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRY7HpVbDRacC7ZNKwLyXbj2hMaoXhkAYjebdfwHLNt1qDnlfhBGTJ1P1yAanp0CznXk1HnC_cqH3re2K7HHZ9IT53dvQwo477PIMfY1EIFNAH0ydzQ6pgs0Nyx7yfRDxCIDY_qX91KfsoHb_f_8zelSnj4S7VH23lDEskkUlcb3mddXVkEywWrBu1Xa3I/s320/2024-01-01%2017.10.57.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>But the other photo-op spot was... a recreation of <i>the bridge where Inspector Javert killed himself</i>.</p><p>Ew. It was pretty, but... ew. Ew ew ew. Am I taking things too seriously? Oh, maybe. But once that thought occurred to me, that Inspector Javert's most famous song ends in his self-termination... well, that photo op set didn't sit right, either.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSqFw3GIw80eorGumgTO9bHbM566fSN-GCG05fs3LcLAoNOEmQ28hvjaS-PbaK-5-lVYkYuWzQg8sl5mWbhEBwsf1tRaGSIJjpRswhbkGUBtuInKJ8gbGiiMfGLepDsAQrKPIc5R3_L3lBANcJNe4hoYvVMtEy4K8M5hTrouv4dURctyKjACAJr51dtn7B/s1031/bridge%20scee%20IMG_4082.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1031" data-original-width="773" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSqFw3GIw80eorGumgTO9bHbM566fSN-GCG05fs3LcLAoNOEmQ28hvjaS-PbaK-5-lVYkYuWzQg8sl5mWbhEBwsf1tRaGSIJjpRswhbkGUBtuInKJ8gbGiiMfGLepDsAQrKPIc5R3_L3lBANcJNe4hoYvVMtEy4K8M5hTrouv4dURctyKjACAJr51dtn7B/s320/bridge%20scee%20IMG_4082.jpg" width="240" /></a></div></div><p>The bridge photo-op set. (<a href="https://blog.naver.com/charming0419/223283547622" target="_blank">Source</a>)<br /></p><p>Other than that twinge... I'd still wholeheartedly recommend seeing the show... three times if you can!</p><p>But here was the thought that got me to click the "write a new post" button:</p><p>I am not quite enough of a theater kid to be up on every musical that The Theater Kids love, but an odd parallel just occurred to me.</p><p>See, when I was a Christian Contemporary Music listener in the 80s and 90s, there was a steady progression of albums by Christian artists that were the ones that kind of took over the CCMosphere -- the albums that everyone had, everyone listened to, and every young person knew all the lyrics to.</p><p>Starting in the 1980s, everyone around me knew, loved, sang along to, Heart In Motion by Amy Grant, then Free At Last by DC Talk, then Going Public by Newsboys, Jesus Freak by DC Talk, Jars of Clay, by Jars of Clay, and somewhere around there I got off the train and lost track of what came next.</p><p>Funny thing is, I'm realizing that The Theater Kids have the same thing -- for a couple of years, everybody loves Les Miserables, and then Miss Saigon, and Rent a little later, and Wicked a little later than that, and then something else... and everybody learns the lyrics, sings along to the songs, people doing auditions get sick of hearing the same song choices, and add subheadings to audition notices "No songs from Dear Evan Hansen, PLEASE" and then a new musical either wins a bunch of Tony Awards or releases its official soundtrack, and it happens again. I know that Wicked was IT for a while, and Dear Evan Hansen, and Hamilton, but clearly, I have gaps in my chronology.</p><p>So if one of my readers is A Theater Kid<sup>tm</sup>, and knows the chronology of which musicals were the "it" musical for a while that every high school theater kid felt spoke deep to their heart... I'd love it, I mean really love it, if you put that chronology in my comments, or shared a link to the blog where someone's written it out. That'd be awesome and I'd love you forever. </p><p>Anyway, I'm going to go and try to figure out which of the many many soundtracks to Les Mis was the version we had in the car during that drive across Canada in 1994, because my ears will not accept any other version of Inspector Javert. (I'll include a link or youtube clip if I find it... but sometimes they're hard to find, because a few of my favorites were from the Toronto Cast Recording, which is harder to track down than the West End or Broadway soundtracks.)</p><br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-70521771351572925292023-12-13T12:03:00.005+09:002023-12-13T12:04:43.437+09:00As 2024 Approaches…<p> Hello dear readers. </p><p>As I sometimes do, December has led me to start thinking back about what kind of a year 2023 has been… and thinking forward to how my (and your) 2024 might go… the whole thing inspired me to create one of those delightful word search puzzles you always see at the end of the year — the words you find in this puzzle will tell you how your 2024 will go! Please share the words you find in the comments!</p><p>Love you all! </p><p>Rob</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPvDviPIA8exVtfhqOW-qGtajHCHXQgwKo6BQGTCmSXSaW97aj9nYxEYLKbgKbO7sDJznvM7Bbr5gmhw9R-Ur9BX6nqfDdwbvmqBBfIbra2LY6KHvCDQbJ4q591MYCoyDsASgCfmyfNA36zbM6nQY8Diq9f2CV4Bx5WkNYz3ORQkzSCwcB1uiYO43TCWqI/s1606/IMG_1071.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="What words do you see?" border="0" data-original-height="1606" data-original-width="1303" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPvDviPIA8exVtfhqOW-qGtajHCHXQgwKo6BQGTCmSXSaW97aj9nYxEYLKbgKbO7sDJznvM7Bbr5gmhw9R-Ur9BX6nqfDdwbvmqBBfIbra2LY6KHvCDQbJ4q591MYCoyDsASgCfmyfNA36zbM6nQY8Diq9f2CV4Bx5WkNYz3ORQkzSCwcB1uiYO43TCWqI/w520-h640/IMG_1071.jpeg" title="Find your 2024 Fortune!" width="520" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-14555009258953621482023-07-05T09:00:00.004+09:002023-07-05T09:00:00.144+09:00Seoul Subway Accessibility Check<p> A few weeks ago, I went out to meet a friend named Crystal.</p><p>Crystal was a long-term expat living in Korea, when suddenly, a spinal problem surfaced that has put Crystal in a wheelchair, dealing with chronic pain, mobility issues, and all kinds of crap that goes with it.</p><p>I'd suggested a meeting on Facebook, and then volunteered to be a camera operator of Crystal and Tommy as they worked on a video about navigating Seoul's subway system. We went from Sadang Station to the KTX platform at Seoul Station -- KTX advertises itself as being wheelchair friendly and accessible -- and we decided to put that to the test.</p><p>Other than that, I think the video speaks for itself: Crystal and Tommy had good points to make during the trip, and it was kind of shocking for me, moving through places I've navigated many many times, taking totally for granted my mobility, ability to use stairs, ability to walk a <i>lot </i>without getting exhausted. Give it a watch: skim, or watch minute by painstaking minute as we discover how much harder and slower it is to move through Seoul's public spaces.</p><p>Warning: there is one point where there is shoving and cursing, as a bunch of older folks tried to shove into an elevator without letting us off first. If verbal abuse and shouting upset you, skip from 41:00 to 43:00.</p><p>Here's the video. It might change the way you look at public spaces in Seoul. It was good to see my friend, but it broke my heart to see how much trouble it was to move around in a wheelchair (the rest of the trip, Crystal reported being refused repairs when wheelchair tires popped or got damaged, and, by the way, Tommy mentioned to me that the experience seen in this video was a totally ordinary day: not remarkably good or bad, for a wheelchair user, and remember that many folks in wheelchairs don't have someone like Tommy there to push them, and occasionally shout "Get out of the way!" for them.</p><p><br /></p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lm9mZ6GAA0Y" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-34835322274147831322023-07-02T23:19:00.004+09:002023-07-02T23:42:21.510+09:00More on My Oma<p> I wrote a very short note at the end of March that my Oma had passed on. Here is a video I sent to my Aunt, to play for her. She saw this video, and it made her smile, so I'm happy about that. It's a bit of a personal message, but you'll notice a few skips where I removed some details that weren't mine to share. I loved my Oma. She was great.</p><p><br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/D2E8DF_2MtI" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>
</p><p>And here is a song I made for Oma, which was played at the funeral with a slide show. I wasn't able to attend the funeral because of the international flight and all that, but I'm glad I got to be present in spirit by contributing this song. Thanks also to my cousin Angela (who is awesome) for putting pictures together for the slide show played at the funeral... not quite the same slide show as the one you see here.<br /><br /><br /></p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b3K_bLYtFJI" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>I hope you enjoy the two videos, or at least that they give you a few outlines in a portrait of my wonderful Oma, and maybe even make you feel grateful for people who have loved you... you might have read my eulogy to Oma's husband (Opa), which went up on this blog many years ago. </div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-86457564991057690692023-03-28T07:59:00.009+09:002023-03-28T08:06:29.781+09:00My Oma died.<div>Oma is the Dutch word for grandmother.</div><div><br /></div>I will add more later, but for now... I feel very very far away from my family in Canada.<div><br /><div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yvtDnXotr-s" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div></div><div><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-13817266589761662362023-03-20T20:55:00.000+09:002023-03-20T20:55:10.232+09:00Roboseyo leaving Weekly Review on TBS EFM, Squeezed Out by Budget Cuts<p>Hello Roboseyo fans!</p><p>I hope you've been well, and happy, and all that great stuff.</p><p>It's been an action-packed little while for me (as always?) but there's been one change that I want to talk about.</p><p>Starting in Fall of 2019, I began hosting Weekly Review, the one-hour weekly program that TBS Efm, one of Korea's English radio stations, runs in order to fulfill some legal requirement about media outlet accountability.</p><p>All fair and fine. It was... a fantastic experience, frankly. I started just a few months before the pandemic hit, and it was a little thing that kept me having things to look forward to, people to meet, things to get excited about, during all the very worst days of the pandemic, when my default would probably have been to become a Howard Hughes-grade shut-in. Instead of letting the days blur together and turning into a toad... I made new friends, deepened old friendships, acquired a new skill, found a lot of joy in hosting a radio show and making the show a place where a big variety of people felt comfortable sharing their views, and did a bunch of other stuff that made me happy, along with scads of laughs and jokes and smiles.</p><p>Well, you may have heard about the politics around TBS's budget problems -- as an outlet funded in large part by the government, TBS got in hot water when one of their Korean DJs said a bunch of stuff that the mayor of Seoul and the new President of Korea disliked, and they used their political pull to withdraw TBS's funding. The review show -- required by regulation -- survived even when a lot of other shows were either wholly or partly cancelled, but in the end, they ran out of money to pay a host (me), and I had to say goodbye to a gig that helped me enjoy my life.</p><p>On air, for my final signoff, I asked the producer if I could say a few things about the value that an English language radio station like TBS Efm brings to the culture of a global city like Seoul, and they graciously said I could, so just below, is a capture of that farewell address, for posterity, and in the hope that maybe it'll reach some of the ears that need to be reminded what an independent, non-education, non-news radio station can contribute to a local culture, as well as global views of that culture.<br /><br />I have more opinions about it than that, connected to the idea of reprisals for free speech, the importance of a free press, and where exactly media outlets can turn for funding in 2023, when everybody wants content, but nobody wants to pay (except advertisers, which introduces a whole other set of problems), but I might save those comments for a future post.</p><p>For now, I want to say again, to everyone who listened, who appeared on air with me as a panelist, or who was on the other side of the soundproof barrier, in production, engineering, or whatever they were doing... thanks to all of you, for an experience I've enjoyed immensely, and hope to do again.</p><p>You can hear my full comments here!</p><p><br /></p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/q68Yprrh4sQ" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><p><br /></p><p>And here's the text of what I said, in case anyone wants to read along.<br /><br /></p><blockquote><p>That is all for our reviews this week! </p><p>I’ve appreciated your insights I look forward to hearing more from you next time!</p><p>With that, we’ve reached the end of another episode of tbs eFM’s Weekly Review. Thanks to all of you for listening.</p><p> Listeners, we’d love to hear your feedback, too. Our email address is: weeklyreviewefm@gmail.com tell us your thoughts or say hello!</p><p>The team will be back again next week, Saturday, at 9am with more feedback and constructive criticism on all your favorite TBS Efm programs, but I have sad news for any of our listeners who have enjoyed my hosting during my time here.</p><p>Loyal listeners have surely noticed the way TBS budget cuts have squeezed out many of the programs listeners love, and that squeeze has reached Weekly Review at last. I’m sad to say that this is my last week as the host of Weekly Review.</p><p>For me personally, that's a loss, and for all the team members who've enjoyed working with me, and also for listeners who've enjoyed my hosting, hopefully, or my cheesy jokes by some strange bit of luck, but the greater loss is one that I’ve seen up close as a reviewer here at TBS Efm: strangling TBS Efm's funding has robbed Seoul, Korea, and people from every country who are streaming TBS Efm or listening online of an amazing resource.</p><p>As a reviewer, I’ve a huge variety of programs presented by TBS efm, and it's my job and here’s the bigger picture: TBS Efm delivered a huge variety of perspectives on Korean life and culture, to a global audience, in real time, for hours every day, in a global language. </p><p>A news or education or Korea promotion only station just can’t show the richness of Korean life the way TBS EFM could at its best. We had family stuff, comedy, chat, live music, deep analysis, conversation with listeners from across the globe, not to mention personal interviews with culture and thought leaders both big and small.</p><p>All together, tbs efm was much more than the sum of its parts. It was a window into all Korea is, could be, and might become. </p><p>So… I’m not here to talk about the politics connected to the TBS EFM budget. </p><p>I AM here to say Seoul, as a global city, is culturally poorer for cutting TBS Efm adrift.</p><p>So if you care that global audiences get to see Seoul and Korea as it really is, through the eyes of creative and interesting people who live here and love it… I encourage you to contact your local representatives, and let them know you’d like them to support TBS EFM.</p><p>It’s been an honor to work with the teams I’ve had here, and it’s been an honor to serve you, listeners, these three and a half years. THank you, all of you in the studio and everywhere.</p><p>And that’s it from me and from our team today. This has been Rob Ouwehand for Weekly Review. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, be safe, and support Korea’s culture by supporting TBS Efm.</p></blockquote><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-34540963893843460672022-10-30T10:12:00.009+09:002022-11-01T21:38:56.857+09:00Halloween Party Crowd crush in Itaewon: I'm OK, but ffffffuuuuuuu.... (updated)<p>First of all: I'm okay. My family is okay. One nice thing about being a dad is that my Halloween party plans tend to be in the afternoon, not at night.</p><p>A few thoughts on it:</p><p>First... if I were going to go to a Halloween party, it would have been either Itaewon, where this whole thing happened, or Hongdae, where the youngs like to hang out.</p><p>Second... if you asked me to drop a pin last Thursday, the location where it happened is one of the two places where where I would have thought it would happen: It's right next to the subway station, it's also a little T-shaped intersection between the back streets where there are a lot of clubs and restaurants, and the main strip. What that means is: in that little area, a bunch of people are trying to get OUT of the back streets, a bunch of people are always trying to get IN, a bunch of people on the main strip are trying to head AWAY from the subway station to get down to where there are more party events, and a bunch of other people on the main strip are trying to head TOWARD the subway station, to head to the other end of Itaewon, or get to the subway station. </p><p>Normally that just means dodging past a bunch of people going in every direction, but if the crowd is big enough for it to become a bottleneck... this happens.</p><p>This is particularly haunting to me, because all last week I was telling my students that it's fun to go to a Halloween party at least once while you're a university student. I hope they all went to Hongdae (the other club area popular with international folks and students).</p><p><br /></p><p>A little while ago, I think when the thing in Indonesia happened, my son asked me about crowd crushes, and we learned a bit about them through some Youtube videos. So here: learn a little about how they happen, and a bit about what to do:</p><p><br /></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ldOprmqSt7o" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>Now I am hearing people invoke the Sewol Ferry disaster here—the Sewol Ferry sinking was a horrible confluence of risk factors that led to 304 deaths, worst of all, many who were high school students. </div><div><br /></div><div>This time we will again see shocking numbers of casualties in their teens and twenties—these were partygoers! [update: this is starting, and god it's sad]</div><div><br /></div><div>But I don’t think they are quite as comparable as all that, other than the utter, gut-punch grief that will wash over the country as we start seeing photos and learning about the people we lost last night. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Sewol became a political disaster because it was a boat run by a company that had been cutting corners, exploiting loopholes, and taking advantage of some sloppy or careless safety inspectors, to pile up risk factors until they all went wrong at once. The failure of safety inspectors and regulations directly implicated the government who’d loosened regulations and the entire chain of command who systematically turned a blind eye as conditions that <i>should have </i>been enough to ground the ship until it passed safety protocols... didn't. The slow, confused, chaotic response by the coast guard and reporters who utterly botched the initial reporting meant that some lives were lost that didn't need to be. </div><div><br /></div><div>But the things that went wrong this time? I don’t think you can put them at any regulator or safety inspectors feet. The response was pretty quick, though a crowd crush happens so fast that unless crowd control is already on scene, it won't matter much. [UPDATE: I am changing my mind on this. Word is that people were calling emergency services hours before the crush turned deadly, saying "Hey the crowds are out of control in Itaewon... is somebody on the job of making sure nobody gets hurt?" Not to mention... crowds are <i>always </i>bananas on Halloween in Itaewon. Everybody knows that. And if that's the case... yes. Let's get mad.]</div><div><br /></div><div>How did this one happen? </div><div><br /></div><div>Among the factors that led to this crowd crush:</div><div><br /></div><div><b>1. It was Halloween and Itaewon. </b></div><div> See, every other holiday has festivals and parties all over Seoul—you can go to a Christmas or New Year's or Valentine’s Day party in Kangnam, Jamsil, Hongdae, Jongno, Itaewon, Sinchon, Keondae, and nine other areas that are mad that I forgot them in my list. For Halloween, Itaewon and Hongdae are very much THE destinations, so everyone wanting to dress up and party went to one of those two places. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>2. Hallowe'en is special and kind of weird.</b></div><div> For a crowd to get THIS big, it has to be a holiday that's celebrated by Koreans. At least... <i>enough </i>Koreans. If it were celebrated by <i>all Koreans, </i>there'd be parties all over town (see above)... so Hallowe'en is weird, because it's celebrated by <i>a lot </i>of Koreans (mostly younger ones who had Halloween parties at their English academies), but it's still mainly associated with foreigners (who mostly live in Itaewon). This odd confluence is the reason you'd have a <i>lot </i>of people wanting to celebrate, but also find all on them crammed into one or two places to do it.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>It was the first “post-pandemic” Halloween. </b></div><div><br /></div><div><b>3. For partygoers:</b></div><div> The Covid pandemic isn’t *actually* over, but regulations are relaxing and people are moving a bit more freely. Anyone who likes Halloween parties, but didn’t get to go in 2020 or 2021, was sure as hell going to go balls to the wall this year!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>4. For Bars and Clubs:</b></div><div> If you think the pandemic was tough on people who like to party, imagine how much harder it was for people whose livelihoods depend on selling stuff to partygoers! With that “post-pandemic” feeling, every club and bar with an online presence was sure as shooting planning a “Hallowe’en is Back!” Event to bring out the customers. And bring them out they did. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>5. It happened around 10-11:00pm. </b></div><div> This is exactly when the early partners, who came for dinner but have a bedtime or curfew, are leaving the area, and the late night partiers, who plan to go until dawn, are showing up. That means a lot of coming and going at the same time, so traffic would be heavier coming both in and out of the subway station -- and one of the busiest subway exits was right around the corner from the crush.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>6. Midterm exams just ended. </b></div><div> This means that all the university students who have been stressed out about midterm tests and wanted to cut loose, needed a place to do so. Where better than Itaewon, where the Halloween parties are?</div><div><br /></div><div>I've watched a few videos about crowd crushes -- junior was curious about them after the Indonesia disaster earlier this year, and here are a few things we learned.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>7. First: a large crowd can turn into a crush unexpectedly </b></div><div> It doesn't take much with a large enough crowd. If the people at the back are nudging the people ahead of them with light pressure, that's no problem... except if the crowd is 200 people deep, and each layer nudges the row ahead with that same slight increase in pressure... well, a light nudge in every direction at once, multiplied by 200, is enough to pin someone so tightly they can't breathe. The crowd doesn't even need to be loud, wild, or panicked, for it to happen.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>8. Second: Such a big crowd makes it hard to communicate. </b></div><div> That same large crowd is big enough that the people at the back or outside might not know, or hear, what is happening at the front, or center, of the press. At a rock concert, everyone's paying attention to the singer, so the performer could stop the music, ask everybody to take three steps back, and stop pushing. There was no center of attention for this crowd that could stop the music and ask everyone to stop pushing. The specific place where this happened is especially bad for communication, because it's a narrower bottleneck between two wider streets (see map)</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzEMZh-YXQ962DHVoNiDw_FSBLaLfHtJDZxGJ_sDrmoxZlNUzEyD4oZXpEC30ZCejmXbUfBqHuBWibs28yzmiGeoiaibJbaZNNH2WhlLKh2kxTbR-oEb0KESgnuyK4gFECWa2llECHpzhdqP3ng8473mhArIugX47MmPAfyYfVm5Qo7OetH5tgT3yfPg/s2178/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-30%20at%206.50.59%20PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1240" data-original-width="2178" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzEMZh-YXQ962DHVoNiDw_FSBLaLfHtJDZxGJ_sDrmoxZlNUzEyD4oZXpEC30ZCejmXbUfBqHuBWibs28yzmiGeoiaibJbaZNNH2WhlLKh2kxTbR-oEb0KESgnuyK4gFECWa2llECHpzhdqP3ng8473mhArIugX47MmPAfyYfVm5Qo7OetH5tgT3yfPg/w400-h228/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-30%20at%206.50.59%20PM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy of google maps and imac screenshots</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>The bottleneck is the bridge of an H, with brick walls on every side. On one end was the main Itaewon strip with a subway station people were trying to get to -- or out of -- and the main restaurant/club backstreet just back from the main stretch on the other end. This means that the disaster was <i>around a corner </i>from many of the people who were pushing and shoving to try and get through the crowd. They could never have known.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not going to post photos or video clips (I've seen them, though)...but that crowd was definitely deep enough that the people at the back didn't know what was going on in the center. </div><div><br /></div><div>I hope you're all safe, my dear ones.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*UPDATE*</div><div>I am steadily having my mind changed on the theory that there isn't really one spot to place blame here. Diffusion of blame -- each of the groups responsible for the problem aren't responsible for <i>enough </i>of the problem that they see an incentive to changing their behavior (see, for example, the US political process) -- makes it easy for groups to point fingers and say "It's out of my hands" but... I've seen Korean police navigate massive protests and big rallies and counter-rallies close enough together that it's a surprise violence <i>didn't </i>break out... with surprisingly minimal damage to life and limb. </div><div><br /></div><div>Reports I am hearing from people I know who were in Itaewon that day are saying to me that the crowds were absolutely nuts hours before the crushing incident, which means there <i>was </i>time to deploy police and get the crowding in hand. That this didn't happen is inexcusable: no, the Halloween party isn't run by a single organization the way a protest or a tourism festival is, so there isn't a point contact to talk to the police about expected crowds, or an organization with an insurance company ready to answer the phone, or pay whoever it is that makes crowd size estimates, but it's well known that Halloween is bonkers in Itaewon, and the writing on the wall was there that it was going to be unusually busy, because... the writing was <i>literally </i>on the <i>Facebook </i>walls of dozens of clubs and restaurants and other venues promoting their Saturday Night Halloween Bash. The police should have been on site in very very large numbers by 4pm that day, certainly by 7pm, and whoever makes that call missed it, and now 150 people are dead who didn't have to die.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have changed my mind.</div><div>*/UPDATE OVER*</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>So what happens next?</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, after the Sewol Ferry disaster, Koreans came together in sorrow and solidarity in a really cool way. I hope the communal grief experience ends up being one that pulls Koreans together in a tough time.</div><div><br /></div><div>After the initial outpouring, it started getting political, as the opposition party started attacking the party in power for its slow, confused and jumbled response, and from there the Sewol disaster and the yellow ribbon that symbolized it began to be a symbol of political conflict instead of grief and solidarity.</div><div><br /></div><div>There were clear, actionable responses along the lines of safety standards and rigor in regulation checking with the Sewol, but I don't know if that will happen here. The confluence of those eight danger conditions, all at once, in that specific time and place, was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model" target="_blank">a great example of the swiss cheese model of a disaster</a>. You could hold a hundred festivals in Itaewon and not repeat this disaster -- and they have. The things that prevent a crowd crush -- and there are some -- aren't particularly useful if they're installed in that spot, because the next crowd crush in Korea might be in Busan, or outside the stadium before or after a Kpop concert or a big sports event, or in City Hall during a World Cup soccer game, or on the morning of a super mega discount crazy sale at a shopping center. If that alley in Itaewon should have guard rails and direction arrows, about a hundred other places around Seoul -- entrances and exits for concert or sports venues, outdoor festival locations, subway exits with narrow stairwells that open into popular shopping, clubbing or event-having neighborhoods, subway stations close to once-a-year-events, and public protest spaces, should all be kitted out with the same things.</div><div><br /></div><div>That might be a good idea... but there isn't a clear fall guy to blame for this one the way there was for the Sewol Ferry Disaster, so let's hope it doesn't turn into a political fight. [*Update... see above. I am changing my mind on this... but I'm still not convinced the event creates the kind of political leverage the Sewol did. It might, though.*]<br /><br />Here are some of the things that can prevent a repeat crowd crush:</div><div>--Steel barriers separating people walking one way and the other way.</div><div><br /></div><div>They could put these up, but if that alley needs steel barriers, about a hundred other alleys around Seoul need them, too.</div><div><br /></div><div>--CCTVs and computer modeling that predicts when an area will reach danger level</div><div><br /></div><div>Someone should already be at work designing a Seoul-wide system for observing crowd density, with details about which measures should happen at which point.</div><div><br /></div><div>--Close down the subway stations serving the busiest areas </div><div><br /></div><div>The Seoul Fireworks Festival already closes down the subway stations serving the busiest areas closest to the fireworks display. The train doesn't even stop: it just passes through that station until the event is over, and then subways show up to bring people home. There should be a rule that the subway stations stop dropping people off at a station once crowd density reaches some threshold: this could be the next level intervention, if police deployed haven't made an impact on the crowding. This might not work as well as it does for the fireworks festival, because that has a <i>clear </i>ending after which nobody is still trying to go to Yeouido, so urban planners might have better ideas than I have.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>--Putting up LED signs around subway exits and narrow but busy alleys that can flash instructions like "This subway exit closed. Please cross the street" "Dangerous Crowding Ahead: Take An Alternate Route" Make sure these instructions are multilingual.</div><div><br /></div></div><div>--Spreading out the time of an event -- after a crowd crush in Mecca, Hajj organizers started giving people passes that told them what time of day they could attend the most crowded parts of the Hajj ritual, so that people would be coming all day long, instead of all at once.</div><div><br /></div><div>This could happen at every festival in Seoul, and maybe should. Someone could design a process where clubs and bars and restaurants get assigned hours of the day, or days of the weekend, to host their own festival event so that the stream of visitors is spread out, instead of every bar in Itaewon planning an event from 9pm-1am. It might take some tweaks to get a system everyone feels is fair, but it could work if some stickler in the bureaucracy really wanted to make himself a pain in the ass of every business proprietor in busy areas.</div><div><br />Again, if these measures are implemented in Itaewon, they should happen in a dozen areas around Seoul -- around Lotte Mall and Myeongdong on big sale days, around the stadiums and sports watching venues during the World Cup, and all protest zones. </div><div><br /></div><div>My hope is that this was enough of a freak incident that nobody finds a way to turn it into a political bludgeon, no dumbass starts making arguments that there's something about Korean culture that makes Koreans particularly prone to crushing each other at Halloween parties, nor that foreign cultural festivals are clearly a blasphemy and Dangunshinhwa must be punishing Korea for letting its culture be sullied with foreign traditions.<br /><br />Celebrity pastor blames the gays in five.... four.... three....</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Keep safe, everyone. Hug the people you love, and keep your head on straight next time you go to a busy event.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-78033433077703121542022-09-09T15:02:00.006+09:002022-09-17T20:14:20.539+09:00September 8th, 2022: Missing Mom again is OK. Grief is part of Loving [Updated]<p> This was a note I wrote on Facebook, but I think it deserves commemoration on my blog, too. It's not the first time I've written about mom on my blog (<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2006/11/my-mothers-funeral-eulogy-and-my.html" target="_blank">her eulogy is here</a>, and my <a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2008/09/so-roboseyo-what-is.html?m=0" target="_blank">Jesa post</a>, which is still one of my favorite blog posts that I've ever written, is here, and if you want to know more about Jesa -- korea's ritual to honor those who are gone, and the ancestors in particular, <a href="https://thesoulofseoul.net/2015/02/23/how-to-perform-a-korean-jesa-ceremony/" target="_blank">you can read about it here</a>, or from <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-hold-jesa.html" target="_blank">Ask A Korean! here</a>.)</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/Robahand/Rq6gpwdz9TI/AAAAAAAAATw/JBFFCcboNII/s512/smallchristmas9.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="339" data-original-width="512" height="212" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/Robahand/Rq6gpwdz9TI/AAAAAAAAATw/JBFFCcboNII/s320/smallchristmas9.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Story: When mom wanted to finish a roll of film, she would walk into a room and say “hey everybody” and snap a picture of them all looking over with dull “whaa?” expressions, until the roll was full. Consistently bad, uninteresting pictures. This day, she had a roll of film, and started doing that, and me, Deb and Dan said, “no, Mom. Let US fill out the roll” and took a series of photos that are, to this day, some of my favorite pictures of the youngest three siblings.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p>September 8, 2005, was the day my mom left this earth. If any of you has ever spent some time with me and come away thinking I'm gentle, or caring, or a good listener, that I'm warm and affectionate, or encouraging, or good with kids, then you have met my mother as well, one step removed. If you have not thought those things, I take the blame entirely upon myself, because that is the kind of person she showed me to be, and I guess I failed to live up to that.</p><p>Most of these pictures are of mom. The one of me sitting in a tree was taken by her, and it has a story. </p><p><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4m_XQRxWZDzNktCbqrGtUkqZ6XD9MX--od8XYCrhw9tOLHfwWxar89vzuXb1SlF-TpzFGxTAEV4XmM62Y7ZxF1A-Uc7qpGh40QrHkvpXOLPx1hFaQXQC7cBxHId0jXIjzUCLSz1E9w39U7P_mT6PAvEV_4TjenN_qmBxNBnFbCoNWCpibEwk528Kf6w/s546/rob%20sittin%20in%20a%20tree...%20alone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="372" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4m_XQRxWZDzNktCbqrGtUkqZ6XD9MX--od8XYCrhw9tOLHfwWxar89vzuXb1SlF-TpzFGxTAEV4XmM62Y7ZxF1A-Uc7qpGh40QrHkvpXOLPx1hFaQXQC7cBxHId0jXIjzUCLSz1E9w39U7P_mT6PAvEV_4TjenN_qmBxNBnFbCoNWCpibEwk528Kf6w/w273-h400/rob%20sittin%20in%20a%20tree...%20alone.jpg" width="273" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rob alone, sittin' in a tree... story below.</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>See, for all her good qualities, mom was a spectacularly bad gift-giver. She just never got the hang of figuring out what other people would like, so she mostly got other people the thing SHE would have liked to get as a gift.</p><p>This led to a nadir one Christmas that involved some tears and a quick save through our family's very very weird sense of humor, but at that point mom kind of threw her hands up, and instead of trying to surprise us, she made a plan to take us each shopping on our birthdays: bring us to the mall or wherever, and let us pick out the thing we wanted or needed. This worked much better in general than trying to surprise us and disappointing us instead.</p><p>Near the end of my university years, she moved up a level: the best thing she could offer, really, was her time and her company. Mom was a wonderful person to be with, no matter what you were doing, so the last few birthdays I had with her, she figured out that the very best gift she could give me was to take me out to spend some dedicated time with her. She'd take us out to a play, or something we wanted to do or see. The picture of me in the tree was from one of those excursions. She picked me up at university and drove me into Vancouver, where we had tickets to see a play (Amadeus). Before the curtain opened, we hung out in Stanley Park, probably Vancouver's best landmark, and she'd brought a camera, so we snapped a few pictures, that being one of them, and one of my favorite photos of myself from that time, because of the day when she took it, which was a lovely day from top to bottom.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig9rJOIbNEioxEF0XeWfu4YeaUgIK21wgI3PGVNHm2YX937iBtXWMZ1DIwO589mBEhC3Z0khify5w-frkk2Y8mgor0-TRj3NTO1SEhAGtPlzKa6MTdYe1nmn9b89rgX3FnLD8bjEs3yY74/s265/Oma-Matthias-2001.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="214" data-original-width="265" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig9rJOIbNEioxEF0XeWfu4YeaUgIK21wgI3PGVNHm2YX937iBtXWMZ1DIwO589mBEhC3Z0khify5w-frkk2Y8mgor0-TRj3NTO1SEhAGtPlzKa6MTdYe1nmn9b89rgX3FnLD8bjEs3yY74/s320/Oma-Matthias-2001.JPG" width="265" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>We saw the play, and then we went for dinner, and I had lobster for the first time in my life... Mom hadn't asked Dad for permission to eat such fancy stuff -- I suggested lobster almost as a joke, airily saying, "You know I've never had lobster!" with the subtext, "How ridiculous, suggesting such an expensive meal! Can you imagine if Dad, who makes the responsible money choices, heard us suggesting such fripperies?" (Dad ran the family checkbook), so she agreed to do it with a conspiratorial smile. The lobster was wonderful, and the feeling of mild transgression with your mom was another layer of fun on the entire day. </p><p>(We did get busted: mom paid for part of the meal with cash to hide how large the bill was, but Dad noticed a disproportionately large tip when he was balancing the checkbook, and mom 'fessed up. He couldn't do anything anyway: that money was already spent!)</p><p>Mom was the best at making people feel loved. The absolute best. Nobody's perfect, but that is the thing that stays with me all these years afterwards.</p><p>Grief is the mirror image of the love you had for someone: some loves never end, some people leave impacts on us that linger for our entire lives, whether they're still around or not, and where mom's love made me a better, kinder, more balanced or confident or generous person, each of those spots is a little hollow, a knot in the wood, where sorrow gathers now that she's gone.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE6TWuAUQdATewveRYgJjMzYPgE6o759L9-R9QQdQTXj14Yg2Bp4OPre5nq3yIwWFP1tD1I_W2DHMYL6RhaAkwqYQ9QRV63gZE_3Ii6MEge4ApZaNNe5P4zNofm6_M_q8nRISHtOHCsA_J3ziJVJ0rm4YChNXxbcWKHCjGkhaCEDwSvwLoxYJElNNPyg/s640/jane%20cowboy%20hat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE6TWuAUQdATewveRYgJjMzYPgE6o759L9-R9QQdQTXj14Yg2Bp4OPre5nq3yIwWFP1tD1I_W2DHMYL6RhaAkwqYQ9QRV63gZE_3Ii6MEge4ApZaNNe5P4zNofm6_M_q8nRISHtOHCsA_J3ziJVJ0rm4YChNXxbcWKHCjGkhaCEDwSvwLoxYJElNNPyg/w400-h300/jane%20cowboy%20hat.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>But that's OK. It's normal, it's appropriate, I'll even say it's *proper* that such an important person in my life is still grieved, all these years later. She absolutely deserves the occasional tear or sob, the occasional melancholy 'wish you were here' dream (I had a dream where I introduced her to my son once), the occasional nostalgic thumb-through of the photo album. That's just the mirror image of the love and goodness she brought to my life, and ultimately, my life is richer and fuller both for the good things she gave me, and for the ways grieving her made me softer, more gentle, more empathetic, and better at showing my special people I love them while they are still around for me to appreciate them.</p><p>Miss you mom!</p><p>RIP</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQkDM9DfquWdzV_ijh59ZbWrkAAlaEnEIayGsSbwJBZVYAhCibBecM6X1ZkWHq1vd7r8VP5H1iRH3k5vIr8HgFjDVILXGZsv-DDSOSmwK1vQCNafb-mkeFNsIgOj_bGyQeujNj9mcz6pnP/s320/smallmatthias4.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="212" data-original-width="320" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQkDM9DfquWdzV_ijh59ZbWrkAAlaEnEIayGsSbwJBZVYAhCibBecM6X1ZkWHq1vd7r8VP5H1iRH3k5vIr8HgFjDVILXGZsv-DDSOSmwK1vQCNafb-mkeFNsIgOj_bGyQeujNj9mcz6pnP/s320/smallmatthias4.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mom with her oldest grandchild. She had a special relationship with him, and one of the hardest parts of losing her is that she never got to be a special Oma for my kid, or a special mom-in-law for my wife. My step-mom, Nana, is wonderful, and a blessing in all our lives, to be clear. I'm thankful for everything about her because she's just awesome. But I'm still sad Juniorseyo never met his Oma. It's hard, but those can both be true.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9J13y8ZUd0QSNiNxK-0Z0z0zg4WJXuxA0yJSKj-k0K0bMSGwizkD55KYmvRHpFFOqIYaQ8-5NkjUjKkWWyXxlY5CzPyriMI2UEl1zBgEoGvPdW0cAieCNo8PiSVarOr8F_2nHOjIZLzml/s600/momdad25th.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="600" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9J13y8ZUd0QSNiNxK-0Z0z0zg4WJXuxA0yJSKj-k0K0bMSGwizkD55KYmvRHpFFOqIYaQ8-5NkjUjKkWWyXxlY5CzPyriMI2UEl1zBgEoGvPdW0cAieCNo8PiSVarOr8F_2nHOjIZLzml/s320/momdad25th.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mom and dad, at their 25th anniversary party. This is how Mom looks in my memory. A little soft, in just the right spots to give transcendent hugs.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi54BTkBsmMfa7As_M5SfhMvwgg53WJnlaOQ3RJz1k1rhyphenhyphenNhSQfgUH3nkfcO91ZYnyARY0ujx3safQEL3q7-0QRPeV1Fg_FeJLP9xBeIP53gnFa_KCt2B43QC4LIh60Vi3e2TWjZO3r2kwZ/s320/R-J-04-05.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="320" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi54BTkBsmMfa7As_M5SfhMvwgg53WJnlaOQ3RJz1k1rhyphenhyphenNhSQfgUH3nkfcO91ZYnyARY0ujx3safQEL3q7-0QRPeV1Fg_FeJLP9xBeIP53gnFa_KCt2B43QC4LIh60Vi3e2TWjZO3r2kwZ/s320/R-J-04-05.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mom with Dad, in her last year. Losing weight because of stomach cancer. Fuck cancer.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Update: My sister Deb shared the post I wrote, which I've copied above, and added a few thoughts of her own, which were just lovely. I've had a few really nice responses and reflections from a few of the people who loved mom -- including one of her best friends, and a few cousins and relatives whose lives were touched by Mom's love, and I'm really grateful for them, too. How wonderful is it that seventeen years after someone died, they can still bring people together? That is just such a perfectly Mom thing to do.<div><br /></div><div>So, with permission, here's what my sister Deb wrote.</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>[My brother wrote this linked post:] This is a beautifully crafted piece about my mom. My brother describes both her and the loss of her so perfectly.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>One of my favourite memories of my mom was ALSO an excursion rather than a gift (I had a dream once where she NAILED Christmas. Every gift was perfect...I woke up laughing, realizing it had to be a dream because in real life that never happened!! 🤣🤣🤣)</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>My mom and I went walking one day up and down the walkway at White Rock. We did the beach on the way down, and the shops and restaurants on the way up.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>We stopped for dinner and shared a Bellini, my first restaurant bought alcohol and still my favourite drink when I'm in the mood for a drink.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>At the end of the day we had dessert (crème brûlée) and watched the sun set and rabbits frolic from a rooftop patio. It wasn't fancy, we didn't solve the world's problems, but we were together and I knew there was nowhere else mom would have wanted to be that day than spending time with me.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>Mom loved unconditionally, laughed with her whole body and held onto the special moments and memories that were given to her in time shared.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>I miss her on the good days and the hard days. </div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>I don't wallow in sadness, I don't have a deep unforgiving ache, but Rob puts it very well, deep love leaves a deep hollow and I do have moments where I just wish that hollow could be filled.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>That dream where mom gave great gifts? I woke up laughing, but also, I got in a few more great mom hugs during that dream, and I'm glad I remembered those when I woke up too. </div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>17 years feels like forever and so fast all at the same time. Love you, mom.</div></div></blockquote><div><p><br /></p><p>/END QUOTE</p><p><br /></p><p>I'm so grateful to my sister for sharing this. I never heard this story, nor about her (hilarious) dream where mom got every Christmas present right... but it's so great any time you get a few more mom hugs, even if they're in a dream. I love the line that "I knew there was nowhere else mom would have wanted to be that day than spending time with me." --one thing that was always great about mom is the way that when she was with you, she was <i>with </i>you -- she was fully present and focused on the person she was with. She died before the first smartphone appeared on the market, but I think she would have hated them more than anybody, because they cause people to be only half-present, half-looking at the phone, and mom was never less than 100% present for someone.</p><p>and I'm also grateful for my sister mentioning that mom laughed with her whole body -- things got silly in our house sometimes, and mom was a little small, and a little round, and when she really laughed hard, it looked like she'd roll right onto her back: a rock backwards so that her (so very short) legs were off the ground as she rocked back in her seat, accompanied with a welt-worthy thigh slap, and a full-throated belly-laugh that could be heard from outside the house. Oh, it was fun to try to get her to laugh like that.</p><p>Thanks again to every last person who saw and responded to my little FB tribute to mom, or who comments here. Grief doesn't have a time limit, and neither does love, and if this cluster of paragraphs can encourage someone to make a phone call or send a note to remind someone that they're loved, that'll be a perfect fit with mom's legacy, so go on and do that, and somebody new will get a chance to meet my mom, a few steps removed!</p><p><br /></p><p>Love Rob</p><p><br /></p><p>Speaking of grief, today, the 17th anniversary of mom's death, was also the day Queen Elizabeth II went to meet her maker. The whole English speaking world is sad on the day I'm remembering mom... Queen Elizabeth was my favorite royal by a long-shot, and carried a great deal of the English royal family's legitimacy on her strong shoulders. I wonder what will happen next, but QEII was awesome, and I'll miss her being around holding the entire rest of the royal family back from being sucked completely into a black hole of scandal.</p></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-27078642703682784822022-08-19T21:50:00.006+09:002022-08-19T21:50:52.099+09:00Walking Around Samcheongdong, my annual blog post. 삼청동 서울<p>I took some walks around Samcheongdong recently, and turned on my camera. Just because.</p><p>If you like walking around neighborhoods, or think my voice is cool, or want to hear my thoughts on the neighborhoods, enjoy them!<br /></p><p>Warning: they have not been fact checked, and only minimally edited, so... set expectations accordingly.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/B7jURXzpwxY" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe> <div>This is the long one.</div><div><br /></div><div>I was sending them to a friend, so for a while I tried to keep them under 2 minutes so that messenger wouldn't go "Durr. File too large." But then I gave up.</div><div><br /></div><div>It was on August 8, and there was some serious rain in parts of Seoul, so you hear me talking about the chances I'll get wet, but it never quite came to piss. I mean pass.
This is a tiny temple near the entrance to Samcheongdong.</div><div><br /></div><div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j9Al715ajuU" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I talk here a little about gentrification in this neighborhood.</div><div><br />
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N0GlRu8a3NA" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>
The little graffiti street near the National Library.
<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mhVdHu-5_HI" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-6101160071658089872021-11-04T01:27:00.001+09:002021-11-06T09:43:51.003+09:00MCU: Looking Back, Looking Forward<p> The Eternals is hitting theater screens this week...</p><p>to celebrate, I made a video series of my thoughts on where the MCU is right now, how it got to be so darn successful, and which pitfalls are coming up, which might undermine the success of their next phase.</p><p>Video One: How the MCU got to the top.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ygmx8LiGatM" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></p><p><br /></p><p>Video two: Trouble on the Horizon: problems that will become big for the MCU very very soon.</p><p><br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mgS5h-QA1TA" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></p><p><br /></p><p>Coming soon: Video three: Problems bedeviling the MCU right now.</p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f-F3c3Tcnos" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-5806551313209797082021-10-28T00:00:00.003+09:002021-11-04T01:23:31.457+09:00Dave Chappelle's "The Closer," Edgy Comedians, and Cancel Culture<p>Lately, everyone's mad (or at least riled up) about Dave Chappelle's "The Closer" on Netflix. I made two videos about it. The first one is about edgy comedy in general, and a few things we need to consider when transgressive comedy is in the news.</p><p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gdtyPkIV5g8" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The second one is about the transgressive comedy special of the hour, Dave Chappelle's "The Closer" on Netflix, where he really tried to get cancelled by taking aim at trans folk. (ps: he's not cancelled). There's been a big discussion and a lot of points of view expressed on the issue <i>of </i>Chappelle's special, and the issues <i>in </i>Chappelle's special.</p><p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4pohLF9mdH8" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /></p><p>I hope you like them!</p><p>In all this, I think it's important to make sure that we're listening to what <i>actual trans people are saying </i>rather than getting carried away with <i>what is being said <b>about </b>them</i>. I am dismayed to find there are a lot of articles talking about Chappelle, about Netflix, about the media furor, and about the Netflix employees who walked out in protest of the special, but I'm down on page two and three and four of the google search results, and still finding a very disappointing lack of articles reporting trans folks' take on Chappelle's comments.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here are some articles featuring the voices of trans people, talking about Chappelle's special. Please make sure the subjects of the conversation have their voices heard.</p><p><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/24/entertainment/trans-comics-dave-chappelle-netflix-cec/index.html" target="_blank">CNN asked four trans comedians what they thought of Chappelle's special.</a></p><p><a href="https://youtu.be/lPEtP6FeQj8" target="_blank">CBC has a video which includes a black trans artist on the panel, who makes some good points.</a></p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/oct/09/dave-chappelle-letter-trans-comedian-netflix" target="_blank">Comedian Dahlia Belle has a response in the Guardian that's blistering.</a></p><p><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/comedy/features/dave-chappelle-netflix-closer-trans-b1934860.html" target="_blank">A very good perspective from the Independent: </a></p><p>Back in 2005, there was a very specific incident that had made Chappelle realise his comedy might be harmful. In a sketch he considered to be ironic, he was dressed in blackface and dancing, when he heard the loud echo of a white man’s laughter reverberate across the set. To Chappelle, this was evidence that his satire wasn’t working: regardless of his intention, some people felt he was giving them the green light to laugh at an oppressed minority. Over 15 years later, The Closer confirms that Chappelle is no closer to remedying his original problem. After all, he is still drawing out mean-spirited laughs from a crowd – the difference is that the laughs are now at the expense of another marginalised group.</p><p><a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22738500/dave-chappelle-the-closer-daphne-dorman-trans-controversy-comedy" target="_blank">This Vox article includes vital statistics</a> about the frequency of violence and abuse against trans people, including domestic violence, workplace harassment, hate crimes, homelessness, and suicide.</p><p><a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-10-07/dave-chappelle-special-transphobic-comments-netflix-backlash" target="_blank">This LA Times article quotes several transgender people who worked with or for Netflix, including Terra Field, the Netflix employee who was fired (and re-hired) for speaking out against Netflix.</a></p><p><a href="https://abc11.com/dave-chappelle-the-closer-lgbtq-community-netflix/11096443/" target="_blank">This report quotes trans activist Drian Juarez.</a></p><p>Readers, if you have another trans voice who's weighed in on this topic, please link it in the comments.</p><p><a href="https://vawnet.org/sc/serving-trans-and-non-binary-survivors-domestic-and-sexual-violence/violence-against-trans-and" target="_blank">More facts about violence against transgender and nonbinary people.</a> If you can watch a Chappelle special full of trans jokes, don't look away from this.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-38819346052956234512021-10-05T00:21:00.009+09:002023-07-02T16:42:05.566+09:00CoronaVirus CoVidEo Corner: Plague Film Bonanza: Part 5<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Weirdo that I am, I'm commemorating the CoVid19 lockdown by watching plague movies, and because I love you, I'm writing them up for you, readers, and I'll end the series with a nice best-of countdown!<br /><br />
If you aren't up to date on the series, the rules for inclusion or the scoring, I'll put a recap at the bottom of this post, or <a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_16.html" target="_blank">you can read the full description and official rules at the table of contents page</a>.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I... I kind of ran out of gas on this blog series, probably because as the pandemic got worse, watching plague movies stopped being quite so fun, but every half-finished blog post in my draft file bugs me, so here's a chance to move one from "unpublished" to "published"<br />
<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">In This Episode (Part 5)</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">The Crazies (2009 and 1973)</div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">Day of Resurrection/Virus: The End (Fukkatsu No Hi) (1980)</div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">The Andromeda Strain (1971)</div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">REC (2007)</div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">Blindness (2008)</div><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Crazies (2009)</b><b> </b><b>(<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455407/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>) and 1973 (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069895/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>)</b></span><br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Skinny: </b>George Romero, creator of the modern zombie film with "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H91BxkBXttE" target="_blank">Night of the Living Dead</a>," took another kick at horror/plague can with the 1973 original, and produced the remake in 2010. An airplane crashes outside a small town, releasing a bioweapon government scientists have been working on into the water supply of a very small town. The infection causes people to either die or become extremely violent.<br />
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In both versions, the military sets up a perimeter to try to quarantine the town, and things turn really, <i>really </i>sour. For some reason the military wants to get everybody into the school gym for quarantine (sounds like a rotten idea if the infection makes everyone attack each other), which gives the military (and the filmmakers) an excuse to roam all over town in search of extreme situations. We follow different townsfolk and military personnel as the "Crazies" virus (nicknamed "Trixie") goes to work. Things get pretty ugly. The 2010 version follows Timothy Olyphant’s small-town sheriff character close enough that the film has a protagonist, which can’t really be said for the original.<br />
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<b>Scoring: 1973 DNF.</b> <i>Night of the Living Dead</i> was better, but a lot of fans of old horror and exploitation films have a soft spot for <i>The Crazies</i> as well. I'll be honest, I didn't feel the film made the most of its premise, it failed to create a real mood of menace or dread, and the gore was dialed down compared to your average zombie attack. There's something about 70s and 80s movies of this type -- there are just so many scenes of someone in military garb shouting "Shut down the thing" into a walkie talkie, while somebody else in a different outfit shouts, "You <i>can't </i>shut down the thing, dammit!" It started with a lot of shouting, and ended with a lot of shooting, but lacked a clear, compelling protagonist and amounted to quite a bit less than the sum of its parts, in my opinion.<br />
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<b>Scoring: 2010 DNF/DQ’d. </b>The 2010 film is a little slicker and better acted, and the imagery is quite a bit better. There is a bit with a pitchfork that’s quite well-done, and a set piece set in a car wash that is very silly, and people with the rage virus get more or less disgusting-looking, depending on how well the protagonist knows them. Now, I love me some late ‘00s Timothy Olyphant, but 2010 <i>Crazies</i> still never quite amounts to something impressive. These films are <i>way </i>better-made than <i>Cabin Fever</i>, but the 1973 version was not compelling, and the 2010 version was more of a monster movie than a plague movie, really, so given that it wasn't a great film to begin with, I'm not giving it a full write-up: it’s either DNF as a plague film, or DQ’d because it’s a monster movie.<br />
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Both films seem to be trying to make a point about government overreach -- as the military tries to contain the breakout, they herd people into fenced cages in 2010, and confine them in a school gym and confiscate their guns in 1973, but this muddles any thematic coherence the film might have had, because if the disease makes the infected do what they do in this film, the military is very much right to contain the outbreak at all costs, and the group (both films have one) who tries to escape the quarantine is incredibly reckless and irresponsible. The 2010 film commits the sin of multiple sudden-noise+hand-appears-out-of-nowhere startling the viewer, only for that person to turn out to be a friend. Bad enough once. There is also at least one, and possibly more, scenes where a character we like is in a bad situation, about to be killed by a baddie, only for them to be shot from offscreen by a character we hadn’t known was nearby. The sauce is too weak to forgive the story’s shortcomings.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Day of Resurrection (1980) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080768/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Fukkatsu No Hi</a>)</span></b><br />
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<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_QF8R24Ccp-SEULJT1pJM8lEeEZjoIP7eMbjuGKhEfaHUC2ScZbdPJQp6KW1lniR4n0BZCfamxzuqncAATiSjuQ8UGhqjarvXNe5PBH8awyXL0hl74w4ka-zNVM00cgJMh9Kx8MSONVuL/s432/fukkatsu-no-hi-movie-poster-md.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="297" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_QF8R24Ccp-SEULJT1pJM8lEeEZjoIP7eMbjuGKhEfaHUC2ScZbdPJQp6KW1lniR4n0BZCfamxzuqncAATiSjuQ8UGhqjarvXNe5PBH8awyXL0hl74w4ka-zNVM00cgJMh9Kx8MSONVuL/s320/fukkatsu-no-hi-movie-poster-md.jpg" width="220" /></a></div>The Skinny: </b>The most expensive Japanese film ever made at the time. It tells the story of a virus created by the military that makes other pathogens much more deadly, and kills all life on earth, except the inhabitants of a few Antarctic research stations. The Cold War finally over, the researchers try to imagine life repopulating the earth after the virus has died away, only to realize US and Russia have set up automated nuclear launch deterrents to a nuclear attack -- launches that will happen automatically if a nuclear explosion is detected, kind of like a dead man's switch, and that these automatic launches might be triggered by a coming earthquake. A few researchers and a submarine crew must go to Washington to turn off the automated retaliation machine before it leads to an automated nuclear exchange between all-dead USA and Russia that would irradiate the earth and perhaps end even chance live eventually makes a comeback.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Good: </b>There's something nostalgic about watching Cold War films in 2020, I admit. Jaw-clenched men in military garb shouting "Cancel the code red" at each other, gazing off in the middle distance and musing, "It could be the end of life itself, Mr. President" -- there's just something so cheesy and quaint about it now, even though in the 70s and 80s the stakes were so high. The film is competently acted and directed, a little slow, and gives the plague mostly superficial treatment as part of the premise for the drama happening at the Antarctic station.<br />
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This film was headed for a DNF until one scene so ludicrous it approached the sublime. An Antarctic station crew is trying desperately to find someone, anyone, still alive on the rest of the planet, and end up talking with a five-year-old who got scared, went on his dad's short wave radio, but doesn't know to let go of the broadcast button when he finishes talking, meaning that people can't reply to him. There's about a <i>three minute scene</i> of scientists and doctors huddled around a radio microphone, shouting "TOBY LET GO OF THE SWITCH" at a five-year-old who can't hear them. Of all the different ways to portray the world ending, they chose this.<br />
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Enjoy it with me.<br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xiPgnXygor8?start=2535" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<b>The Bad: </b>The film's premise is a little silly, and it ends on a serious downer. I guess the film's supposed to be a warning about nuclear weapons? Really, it doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be a plague film, describing the outbreak of the plague, or a "stuck in isolation" film about the people at the Antarctic station: the characters we meet and care about are just about all at the research stations, or dead in the first half of the film, yet the climactic conflict to be resolved involves a trip to Washington to shut off an armageddon machine, disconnected from <i>almost all </i>of the characters we cared about, rather than some problem that must be solved at the research stations. As the scientists decide what to do about the future, the women (there are 8 women on the Antarctic stations, at about a 100-1 man-to-woman ratio) agree to some pretty damn awful living conditions for the sake of the preservation of the human race, in a gross scene that doesn't fit the rest of the movie, and sure sounds like a middle-aged man writing out his sexual fantasy, more than something a group of women would actually agree to. The storyline jumps around between places, groups of characters, and time a <i>lot</i>, skipping around from before the breakout, to during, to the Antarctic bases' long stay and search for a cure, to the point that it feels like the story got away from the filmmakers, or the editor perhaps.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scoring:</b><br />
<b>Frightening: </b>This film starts out as a political drama, turns into a survival drama, and ends weirdly. None of the marks it's aiming for are trying to scare the audience. It's frightening that the Cold War led USA and Russia down such horrifying paths to find an advantage over each other, but especially now that the Cold War (as it was then) is over, the film and its stakes don't really hit the mark any more in 2020. 1/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scary: </b>The scariest it gets is people coughing, and grossest part of the film isn't anything disease-related, but the women of the Antarctic stations agreeing to lend out their wombs to all the men of the research stations for the sake of the human race. There aren't any jumps or gross-outs: this film is not going for that audience. As I said, I probably would have turned it off if not for the unintentional comedy of the Toby scene, which got me to watch the rest of the film, but not to love it. 1/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Plausible: </b>The origin of the plague, the idea that USA and Russia might have been engaging in a biological warfare weapons race, the cloak and dagger around how the virus got developed, and got loose, are all ideas/plots/schemes/fears I've heard before in the context of the Cold War, and the idea that a reckless scientist would be the one to invent the pathogen that gets us isn't farfetched enough. We don't get too many details about the type or progress of the plague, and what we do find out is described in a few exposition lines rather than dramatized interestingly, but it's believable that a couple of diseases could interact with each other to create something much worse, or that low temperatures could make a deadly virus go dormant. 3/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Awesome: </b>This film is a real period piece, for its music and acting, the slower pacing than we get in films today, and for the Cold War context. It's been long enough since USSR fell that it's getting hard to remember just how scary the nuclear arms race was at the time. Moreover, as I said in "the bad" above, the film seems to be unsure of what it is, and not enough of the spaghetti they're throwing at the wall sticks. It was competently made, the short wave radio scene is transcendent, and peak Olivia Hussey sure was something, but none of that was enough to save the film. 2/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>But Wait, There's More! Stinger? </b>You can't really tease more when you've already killed the entire human race save a few dozen, so... nope.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Verdict: </b>If you're going to watch a film where the entire world gets wiped out, <i>The Stand</i>'s "what comes after" is more interesting than this.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Total Score: </b>7/20<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Andromeda Strain (1971) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066769/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>)</b><br /></span>
<b>The Skinny: </b>One of the older films on the plague viewing list, but also one of the very plaguiest, The Andromeda Strain is about a group of crack scientists sent into a deep underground scientific lab to study a virus that has wiped out an isolated American village.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Good: </b>This film probably gets into the details of how scientists would investigate a virus in more detail than any other film in this series: robot arms moving samples around airtight laboratories, computer scans revealing screens of data (in old timey 1970s beep boop green text on black screen style), and detailed discussion of how the virus reproduces, its size, what it feeds on, and how it kills, mean that if you really do read books on epidemiology for fun, this is the plague movie for you. There are a bunch of Very Smart Men (and a woman!) with PhDs gritting their teeth and making Very Important Decisions, and it's kind of charming, but anachronistic (in 2021) how much faith this film shows in science and the scientific method. It wasn't a problem with the science that led Covid to be as devastating as it has been.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Bad: </b>If you don't read books on epidemiology for fun, this film is a little dry. There are long scenes showing, for example, a robot arm moving animal cages around and exposing them to the virus. The scientists all wear identical red jumpsuits, so a few of the characters kind of blur together, and the way the plot hinges around certain protocols being followed or not, and a bit of a contrivance for the reasons a key piece of information doesn't come to light... well, I suppose it's better than Jake Gyllenhaal in VR glasses punching a virus in the jaw, but again, the film suffers from slow pacing and does a <i>lot </i>of explaining. Sure, <i>every </i>film from the '70s is a slow burn to the MTV-addled attention spans of 2021 movie viewers, but... this one is too, and maybe it's not them, it's me... but given that you, dear reader, probably also have an MTV-addled attention span, be warned.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scoring:</b><br />
<b>Frightening: </b>Nah. This film isn't really frightening. You sense academically that the virus is deadly, for one thing by how many precautions the characters take to avoid it (though those precautions slow the action waaay down). The animation and graphics used to represent the andromeda virus are also '70s nifty, and create a few moments of "whoa. It's coming!" but they don't linger enough to count as frightening. 1/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scary: </b>There are a few mild gross-outs when investigators discover dead virus victims with entirely coagulated blood, and during the science testing a few animals are shown dying of the virus, but the purpose of this film is not to make us gasp in horror at the disease, but to marvel at the cleverness of those who unlock it secrets (and the writer who came up with it all). 2/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Plausible: </b>The idea that scientists would be doing science somewhat like this in a super-fancy underground science lab: plausible. The idea that the government has a super-fancy underground science lab and a set of disease investigation protocols including a pre-selected crack team of virus experts standing by for the call? Less plausible, especially after how the pandemic unfolded since 2020. They put a baby on a four-foot-high flat stretcher, keep it there for days, and he never once falls off. The science of the virus and the investigation are very well-thought-through, as they were in the Michael Crichton book. This film lives or dies on whether you think its investigation and results are plausible, and they mostly are. 4/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Awesome: </b>If '70s competence porn is your thing, there's lots to love here, and yeah, the details of the virus and the investigation are so thorough there's a ring of authenticity that if space viruses came down to threaten the earth, they might work this way, but yeah, it's also 70s cinema with the pacing and style that entails. 3/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>But Wait, There's More! Stinger? </b>The virus escapes containment, but because of things they learn during the investigation, that turns out not to be much of a concern, so yes and no: no points awarded or deducted.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Verdict: </b>The more you know and care about scientific process and epidemiology, the more you'll enjoy this film. The only other films in this series that come close to the level of detail in explaining the workings of their plagues are The Girl With All the Gifts and Pontypool, and of them, Pontypool has the best zinger at the end. It is very very sciencey, and very very plaguey.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><br /></b><b>Total Score: 10/20</b> ... perhaps I weighted scary/frightening a little heavy on my scale if the most sciencey and the most plaguey film in the set can only manage a middling score. Than again... it's my series, so I'll score for the things <i>I </i>like, by gum!<br />
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<a href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZTJmNTZlZWUtZTQ2Yi00YTFjLWFiNzctYzFlNmZmZGMzYTlmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjQ2MTk1OTE@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="569" height="320" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZTJmNTZlZWUtZTQ2Yi00YTFjLWFiNzctYzFlNmZmZGMzYTlmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjQ2MTk1OTE@._V1_.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>[REC] (2007) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1038988/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>) </b><br /></span>
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<b>The Skinny: </b>In this Spanish found footage film, a young news reporter follows a fire department call into a building where people are getting sick. While inside, authorities lock down the building, stopping anyone from escaping while a zombie-like infection spreads through the population of building tenants. This film was a huge success, spawning three sequels as well as the shitty tribute of an inferior English language Hollywood remake (which was alright, but close to a shot-for-shot remake, and if I recall correctly, lacked the manic energy of the original). It could qualify as more a zombie movie than a plague movie, but the fact that a lot of my readers are currently in quarantine, lockdown, or under stay at home orders of varying degrees of severity make it relevant enough for inclusion.</div>
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<b style="font-style: normal; font-weight: 400;"><br /></b><b style="font-style: normal;">The Good:</b><b style="font-style: normal; font-weight: 400;"> </b>This film does a good job at slowly escalating tension and fear. Even more, the directing and acting strike me as realistic, simply because if there were a zombie breakout an apartment building, <i>people would be losing their shit</i> and the actors in this film actually show fear and panic. When something happens, people are all shouting at the same time, the cameraman doesn't know where to point, and three people have three different ideas about what to do. Most people wouldn't stay cool and turn into Vin Diesel zombie slayers in this situation, and even police and rescue workers are shouting, panicking and making rash decisions. The film does a few tropes well -- the creepy kid, the harmless old lady <i>gone wrong</i>, and the ending, in an attic, mostly in the dark, is a pretty darn great ending, probably good enough on its own to justify sequels and remakes.</div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><b style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></b><b>The Bad: </b>To be honest, all the usual reservations about found footage films apply. The premise -- that it's a professional cameraman -- helps sell the idea that camerawork should be mostly good, and there are a few haunting images that fit seamlessly into the story -- my favorite is when a character shouts for her friend down a spiral stairwell, and <a href="https://youtu.be/zlxEa0U44Kc?t=102" target="_blank">about ten zombies in the stairwell at different levels all look up, and all start climbing</a> -- but there are also places where the shaky camera and dancing flashlight beams mean that horror reveals are too short, murky, or unsatisfying. It's a hard balance to reveal </span><i>just enough</i> to be scary, but leave the rest to the imagination, but films that use found footage shaky cameras to skimp out on horror reveals are a bugbear of mine. This film had about 70% as many really frightening images as it could have, in my opinion.</div>
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<b><br /></b><b>Scoring:</b></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Frightening:</b><b style="font-weight: 400;"> </b>Yes! The way this film turns a perfectly ordinary living area into a house of horrors is very well done, the suspicion that you never know what your neighbors are </span><i>really </i>doing is a good foothold for terror, and the idea of not being able to escape as things curdle is real and effective. The ever-escalating creepouts and scares make this film a very good variation on the <i>Blair Witch Project </i>template. Showing the raw fear of the building tenants slowly increase makes the frights work, and the cast really sells it. 4/5</div>
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<b style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></b><b>Scary:</b><b style="font-weight: 400;"> </b>Yes! The film bends its own zombie rules - the speed at which people turn into zombies keeps increasing - and the explanation of the whole thing is perfunctory at best, but there are enough surprises, things jumping out of shadows, and gross or startling images that the film takes the viewer where it wants them to go. Good use of light and darkness to set up surprises and increase suspense means that there are jumps, but none of them are cheap. 5/5</div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><b style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></b><b>Plausible:</b> Explanations or origins are barely better than hand-waves, but I it was refreshing that there </span><i>wasn't</i> a "how do they know all these things/how did they find out so quickly and correctly?" character explaining things, the way Jeffrey Wright's character in <i>Invasion</i> or Hallorann in <i>The Shining</i> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cRuyKrhVJg" target="_blank">Gottleib and Geiszler in <i>Pacific Rim</i></a> seem to always have a theory, or know something, or pop in with a bit of exposition, and always be correct. They point a camera around a creepy science lab and zoom in on some creepy newspaper clippings, but nothing is ever fully, or even partly, explained. It is fully believable frightened local authorities would quarantine a building and let everyone inside fester. Every zombie film is preposterous from the very premise, but this film was chaotic and fun and scary enough that it earns a little slack just for being fun. 2/5</div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><b style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></b><b>Awesome:</b><b style="font-weight: 400;"> </b>I've mentioned things like </span><i>people who know what's going on; </i>a lot of films also spend screen time on <i>the public official whose choices make things worse</i>, and part of me was waiting for them to come along and clarify the situation. They never did, and for all the unanswered questions, I actually appreciate how limited and narrow this film's focus was: we only see what the single cameraman recorded, we only know what the characters inside the building know. This film is a concise, adrenaline spike of chaos, panic and fear, and then it's over, and that's enough. It delivers what it promised. 4/5</div>
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<b style="font-style: normal; font-weight: 400;"><br /></b><b style="font-style: normal;">But Wait, There's More! Stinger?</b><b style="font-weight: 400;"> Even though there <i>are </i>sequels, this film does not end with a tacky sequelbait scene. Plus one point.</b></div>
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<b style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></b><b>Verdict: </b>The film succeeds by knowing what it is, what its audience wants, and delivering that. The found footage genre has some inherent drawbacks, but I didn't find myself getting annoyed by them, because of the film's excellent pacing, tight narrative focus, and an excellent performance by Manuela Velasco.</div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><b style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></b><b>Total Score: 16/20</b><b style="font-weight: 400;"> A</b> taut, tightly focused, scary film about small spaces. It might be hard to watch for someone quarantined themselves, but the film delivers on its promise and follows through its premise. It doesn't always make </span><i>sense</i>, but between the pacing, the energy, and the scares, that doesn't matter.</div>
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<a href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNjM4YmE5MjQtYzdjNi00YTE0LWE0ZGItMjFhN2M3Njk5MDc3L2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,717,1000_AL_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="574" height="320" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNjM4YmE5MjQtYzdjNi00YTE0LWE0ZGItMjFhN2M3Njk5MDc3L2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,717,1000_AL_.jpg" width="229" /></a></div>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Blindness (2008) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0861689/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>)</span></b><br />
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<b>The Skinny: </b>A mysterious infectious disease causes people to suddenly "white out" and lose their vision. Julianne Moore's husband, an optometrist, is exposed very early, so she travels into quarantine with him, while still sighted, to take care of him. Quarantine gets pretty rough as more suddenly-blind people arrive in the quarantine facility, and then, as the rest of the world goes blind, too, resources get scarce and the quarantine wards begin to compete. As the only sighted person in quarantine, Julianne Moore has some hard choices to make about how to use her sighted advantage over the other quarantinees. The first third of the film explores the spread of the plague a little, as Danny Glover describes what happened to the people in quarantine, and the middle of the film retells a <i>Lord of the Flies</i> type story of humans becoming shitty in shitty circumstances, and then the final third of the film introduces the theme of finding hope and home in dire situations.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Good: </b>Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo are two of my favorite actors to watch, so that is a pretty durn good start! According to wikipedia, about 700 actors had to be trained to act blind for the scenes in quarantine, and wandering around the city. The film is interestingly made, with some interesting visuals and excellent incorporation of music throughout.<br /><br />
<b>The Bad: </b>Trigger warning for sexual violence. Some of the men in the shitty quarantine ward do classic shitty man behavior, and the film is not shy about showing that, but at least also shows its impact and consequences, both on the victims and on the perpetrators. There is very little explanation of what is happening, or why, and the progress of the plague and its workings are less interesting to the filmmakers than how the film's characters react to it. That can be fine, but then I wish the scene-writing had drawn the characters' personalities and their choices in sharper relief. As it is, the film is almost an abstracted series of moods and ruminations rather than a character or acting-driven story... again, which is fine, but perhaps an underuse of Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore, Danny Glover, etc.'s talent as actors. Moreover, the final third of the film, where Julianne Moore (the characters are never named) and a few of her friends escape the quarantine and explore their benighted city, seems like almost an entirely different genre of film than the first part, the quarantine drama.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaHBkeRBhOB13VRLDKxcaXw8GdZ32USh9BaIbVQkxo5mzBkcgbYzYXom3sXzl95uyLDNw5gTWVvAue8V0hqob3yHODKFFN0IcQmEnzCwiAIzUWiazruuxnK1M1Qd3fCLFDQ0UU1O_5fugM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-04-15+at+1.21.44+PM.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1005" data-original-width="1114" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaHBkeRBhOB13VRLDKxcaXw8GdZ32USh9BaIbVQkxo5mzBkcgbYzYXom3sXzl95uyLDNw5gTWVvAue8V0hqob3yHODKFFN0IcQmEnzCwiAIzUWiazruuxnK1M1Qd3fCLFDQ0UU1O_5fugM/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-04-15+at+1.21.44+PM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">You're gonna have to get all the way off my back...<br />(<a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL--PgETgAz5ES4peXoKSZVi-2jMDYsFn_" target="_blank">source: pitch meeting</a>)</td></tr>
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Meanwhile, Julianne Moore seems to be the only person in the entire city, or perhaps the entire world, who retains her sight, and short of "that's just the premise of the film, so..." that's not explained or examined either.<br /><b><br /></b><br />
<b>Scoring:</b><br />
<b>Frightening: </b>This isn't a scary plague film in either sense. The moods, the feeling of being hedged in and helpless in quarantine, the gross feeling as humans start being shitty, and keep getting shittier: this movie has some downer spots, but none of them are really frightening. The most haunting part, for me, was when Julianne Moore and a few of her closest wandered out of the quarantine, and wandered through the city trying to find food or safety: one of the group falls one step behind, reaches his hand out in the wrong direction to touch the back of the person ahead in line, and ends up getting separated from the group through simple bad luck and happenstance: he goes from being a part of the group, protected by numbers, to just another vulnerable, solitary soul in a city of lost souls. Just like that. 1/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scary: </b>Other than the horror of sexual violence, as well as some physical violence with a knife, there aren't jump-scares or gross-outs here. Where it does get horrific are in the predatory behaviors of the men who control the food in quarantine, and out in the city, where if it seems like you have food, you'll get mobbed by groping, lurching bodies trying to grab at whatever you have, like those scenes in a zombie movie where hundreds of zombie hands reach through a doorway and pull a person back through. Also, there is a short scene of dogs eating the bodies of dead humans in the street. Gross, but a sharp underscore of the idea human life has no value once society has broken down. 2/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Plausible:</b> It's kind of a "Lord of the Flies" vision of what would happen if everyone lost their sight at once, but to be honest, none of the gross behaviors we see people do seem beyond imagination. And in the midst of that, effort is also made to show that the characters <i>do </i>continue to form and develop their relationships, and do those other, lovely things that humans do, too. 3/5</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>Awesome: </b>As I said, any film with Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Danny Glover is off to a good start. The film gives an interesting and well-realized portrayal of an interesting premise and, while I wouldn't say it's fun or always enjoyable, there are interesting things going on throughout. The initial dramatic tension that comes of Julianne Moore being able to see when nobody else can doesn't really yield much story-wise: she operates more as an observer and audience stand-in than as the story's driving energy, though she thoroughly refutes the idea that "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man (or woman) is king." The film is careful to include little moments of human connection, intimacy, spontaneity and surprise, for example when it rains and suddenly all the lost humans groping for food take a moment to enjoy the water pouring over them. On the other hand, with few exceptions, the film is not beautiful to see: colors are washed out, and almost every scene is full of clutter and human squalor, cruelty or desperation. If you are into films showing a lot of people down on their luck and heading toward bottom, people who don't know how to groom because they can't see mirrors, this film is for you. 3/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>But Wait, There's More! Stinger? </b>None.<br />
<b><br />Verdict: </b><i>Perfect Sense </i>was the uplifting art film about plague and loss of our senses. This one was the dark, cynical one. If you like that dark edge, <i>Blindness </i>isn't a pretty look at humanity, but it's well-made in its bleak vision of human isolation and meanness.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>Total Score: 9/20 </b>That seems about right for a film with some good bits, but slow pacing and parts that were hard to watch.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Series Recap:</span></b><br />Weirdo that I am, I'm commemorating the CoVid19 lockdown by watching plague movies, and because I love you, I'm writing them up for you, readers, and I'll end the series with a nice best-of countdown!<br /><br />To sum up the ground rules:<br /><br /><b>Qualifying:</b><br />It has to be a film. There might be some great plague television out there, but I have a kid: binge watching six TV series that are too scary to share with my kid this week is off the table. It has to be a narrative film, not a documentary.<br /><br />The film has to be about a plague or viral infection. That is, the film has to put significant attention on what the infectious agent is, how it spreads or works, and what can be done <i>about the infection</i>. If the response is "we need to hide from/kill all the zombies" it's not <i>really</i> a plague film: it's a zombie film. If the response is "we can beat this if we discover and exploit a weakness in how the virus spreads" then it's a plague film. (So, <i>World War Z</i>:<i> </i>yes; <i>Dawn of the Dead</i>:<i> </i>no.) There's a little wiggle room here, and I'll be making some calls. Deal with it.<br /><br /><b>Scoring:</b><br />Films that fail to hold my attention get a <b>DNF (Did Not Finish)</b><br /><br />Films that hold my attention are scored on four dimensions:<br /><b>Frightening</b> (is it the kind of scary that's moody, builds up, and stays with you afterward?)<br /><b>Scary </b>(is it the kind of scary that makes you jump in your seat, or wish you'd eaten a smaller lunch? Surprises and gross-outs get points in this category.)<br /><b>Plausible </b>(does the plague, and people's response to it, seem realistic, as if it could possibly happen?)<br /><b>Awesome </b>(is it a good movie? Does it hit its marks?)<br />Each of these dimensions will be scored out of five.<br />Finally, for bonus demerits/points:<br /><b>"But wait, there's more!" stinger</b> - does the film end by hinting that the infection is on its way to a <strike>sequel</strike> new location? You know...the montage where the contaminated water ends up at a bottling factory while ominous music plays? Yah those are cheesy, and I will be docking points for them, depending on the amount of cheesiness.<br /><br />It's unlikely that any film will get a 20/20 on this scale, because frightening, scary and plausible are usually a trade-off: films that make me jump like a cat usually don't also make me fear door handles, and a film that does both probably asks for a big suspension of disbelief in the plausibility category.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
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<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank"><b>Go Back to Part 1 </b><br />Films reviewed:<br /><i>(Carriers (2009)</i></a><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Deranged (연가시) (2012)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Patient Zero (2018)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Outbreak (1995)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Bay (2012)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Perfect Sense (2011)</a></i><br />
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<b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Go Back to Part 2</a></b><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">감기 (The Flu)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Black Death</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Pontypool</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Extinction: The GMO Chronicles</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">괴물 (The Host)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Viral (2016)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Girl With All the Gifts</a></i><br />
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<b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Go Back to Part 3</a></b><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">And The Band Played On (1993)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">12 Monkeys (1995)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Cabin Fever (2002)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Planet of the Apes Trilogy (2011-2017)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">World War Z (2013)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Contagion (2011)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Go Back to Part 4</a></b><br /><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Antiviral (2012)</a></i><br /><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Maggie (2015)</a></i><br /><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)</a></i><br /><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Pandemic (2016)</a></i><br /><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Stephen King's The Stand (1994)</a></i><br /><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">28 Days Later (2002) / 28 Weeks Later (2007) duology</a></i><br /><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Invasion (2007)</a><br /><br /><br /></i><b>CoVideo Corner sidebar: Social Distancing Edition:</b><br /><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">This post discusses a set of films about claustrophobia, isolation, boredom and helplessness: the feelings we're all feeling during our stay-at-home quarantines and self-isolation.</a><br /></div>
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-14009189938488574042021-10-01T01:39:00.010+09:002021-10-12T11:36:16.467+09:00Things are Rozy in Korea's Uncanny Valley<p>Every so often, one of those "weird news" stories leaks out of Asia about a celebrity who's entirely virtual. Lately, there's been a dancing girl on TV and bus ads, as well as posters on the sides of city buses, called Rozy. Here's what she looks like.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8LtfcjTKEHBaftQmmyp1xEvPqO_5xiZ0p2jFIXCkmQKnWAHyFDjgjj9uZYrOaRommp9-D5gBB1GzqKI6X_NcCL6kEGM5cij2zgfsQzcb8ypiUBKipbVda9-fHYFUtmAw1uQU_vZu1O4li/s1200/Shinhan-Life-Branding-in-Asia.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="1200" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8LtfcjTKEHBaftQmmyp1xEvPqO_5xiZ0p2jFIXCkmQKnWAHyFDjgjj9uZYrOaRommp9-D5gBB1GzqKI6X_NcCL6kEGM5cij2zgfsQzcb8ypiUBKipbVda9-fHYFUtmAw1uQU_vZu1O4li/s320/Shinhan-Life-Branding-in-Asia.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.brandinginasia.com/koreas-first-virtual-influencer-rozy-bucks-traditional-financial-ads-in-campaign-for-shinhan-life/" target="_blank">Source</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Here's how she moves (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8v_UXdBQtw" target="_blank">youtube</a>)</p><p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y8v_UXdBQtw" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>
</p><p>I've been intrigued by the idea of virtual humans, VR humans, brains in computers and computer generated people for as long as I can remember, so this caught my eye, and it's funny how little media coverage I've seen about it, given that for a few weeks there, she was playing in the ad rotation of every single bus's ad/announcement TV. A few months ago, one of my radio pals talked about this topic on air, and mentioned a name that sent me down a google rabbit hole.</p><p><br /></p><p>(<a href="https://www.creatrip.com/en/blog/11277" target="_blank">a lot of this info was from this blog post</a>)</p><p>You see, here in Korea, there's a surprisingly long history of artificial celebrities: all the way back in the late 1990s, there was 아담 (Adam - fitting name for the first male cyber celebrity) nicknamed 사이버 가수 (사이버 = the phonetic spelling of cyber; 가수 means singer).</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipVcBBtaw3Fizfwg0kuso9ehO31eqnr7fPdaCUAvE-a8j8Pwd9kuaGsmE7U3xlb3HB9gyfNimtItKYHhihT4lY2JaWDrC-qH3CwW4lux0PsgI_gfXRJjd9Wo4rb8E7pZeD_F3-uR_nQ5m0/s640/tumblr_q3svexJeJm1yopakqo1_640.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="640" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipVcBBtaw3Fizfwg0kuso9ehO31eqnr7fPdaCUAvE-a8j8Pwd9kuaGsmE7U3xlb3HB9gyfNimtItKYHhihT4lY2JaWDrC-qH3CwW4lux0PsgI_gfXRJjd9Wo4rb8E7pZeD_F3-uR_nQ5m0/s320/tumblr_q3svexJeJm1yopakqo1_640.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="https://jaeducs.tumblr.com/post/190143590558/cyber-singer-adam-koreas-first-virtual-singer" target="_blank">Tumblr</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>The music of his I've heard was mostly bog standard ballad stuff, but hey: give it a listen.<div><br /></div><div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SkMUCyzdcko" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /></div><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />It's weird to think of it now, but Adam really was a sensation in 1998. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaEmJya4iG4" target="_blank">This Youtuber has made a very nice little history of animated, virtual popstars</a>). Notice how stiff his movements are -- that's a sticking point especially for early lifelike or kind of lifelike animation -- but my buddy says she had his poster up in her room, and hey: look at that perfectly formed nose, right?</div><div><br /></div><div>One thing that interests me about this "animated human" and "robots imitating humans" thing is something called the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley" target="_blank">"Uncanny Valley"</a> -- back in 1970, robotics professor Masahiro Mori predicted that as human-imitating creations got closer and closer to resembling humans, humans would respond to them in more positive, familiar or friendly ways... up to a certain point. Once a robot or simulation of a human got TOO similar, it would flip from being cute to weird and off-putting, to the point that the imitation was perfect, and we'd respond exactly as to a normal person.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you think of some famous examples of robots and computer animated humans in pop culture, you'll see that the theory bears out.</div><div><br /></div><div>A few examples:</div><div><br /></div><div>The very, very non-human robots in Interstellar</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWOfQxtygRDnCPeupdGnC2J3KYJNw6XP7mln_nRUSd7L90X4o0Sy5R-TboDG0JYLGizCtFW-7oMNSnapuBxcVJkrgWiZSkOdjMovzJ6o3k6D2j8kQGh8dmTvyrYkT-whgt_B_rPpKVtM6h/s795/21fe52a8779de005124ff924dbdf8ff5.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="795" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWOfQxtygRDnCPeupdGnC2J3KYJNw6XP7mln_nRUSd7L90X4o0Sy5R-TboDG0JYLGizCtFW-7oMNSnapuBxcVJkrgWiZSkOdjMovzJ6o3k6D2j8kQGh8dmTvyrYkT-whgt_B_rPpKVtM6h/s320/21fe52a8779de005124ff924dbdf8ff5.gif" width="320" /></a></div>...they were weird in a cool way and we couldn't look away. They were like an IQ puzzle that told jokes. We laughed at the sarcastic one.<div><br /></div><div>Think also of the very non-human droids in Star-Wars, like R2D2 and BB8 that could never ever be mistaken for a human, and whom we adore.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWZK6h1f7QG5RDCCkWbk-xwKn7R1lJko4504vSwd63K5ZgakkgEGnMYeb0_-ZKIYFwlVBzqMtGV5T_ya3tlOrnp9Tl8EH0-nsPzTnaHalXbW2q2ZMr-trRpP_F9eL1hI4WDsuRA_bHOrK_/s368/200.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="368" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWZK6h1f7QG5RDCCkWbk-xwKn7R1lJko4504vSwd63K5ZgakkgEGnMYeb0_-ZKIYFwlVBzqMtGV5T_ya3tlOrnp9Tl8EH0-nsPzTnaHalXbW2q2ZMr-trRpP_F9eL1hI4WDsuRA_bHOrK_/s320/200.gif" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div>Then think of the way the characters move in 2001's Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which just bit off more than it could chew trying to create 100% cgi characters for an entire movie, it was a daring move, but it flopped, because the characters' movements were off-putting. They were so realistic...but not realistic enough. CGI at this period always looked to me like gravity didn't affect it properly, as if it floated above things. </div><div><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AzqJt3ol8Gg" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div>Think of the creepy animatronic talking robots whose lips move all wrong...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUVfPg9KxUj-VB9paMTt7oU0L6YNPOGm9hR6tct4fRgKN6NRKp1Wy2pNDouZcG_ERhF4a99p71SzC2YcDymLI0AIAwYTLZJr8BVOBgkNuTltIUGdNo8l5kAd2ahAvl5PZjFlaoIo38s0Pj/s640/nsqdernefkavtihbq7bu.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUVfPg9KxUj-VB9paMTt7oU0L6YNPOGm9hR6tct4fRgKN6NRKp1Wy2pNDouZcG_ERhF4a99p71SzC2YcDymLI0AIAwYTLZJr8BVOBgkNuTltIUGdNo8l5kAd2ahAvl5PZjFlaoIo38s0Pj/s320/nsqdernefkavtihbq7bu.gif" width="320" /></a></div><div>Gross. <a href="https://youtu.be/TyJ-xLj9SEE?t=182" target="_blank">The youtube video about Erica the animatronic humanoid robot can't even go four minutes without talking about making out with a robot.</a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>The most famous example of the uncanny valley is almost certainly The Polar Express, which is just two hours of cringe every Christmas. The characters are so alien. The way they move through space, the way their faces imitate normal facial expressions but miss. Their faces move but there clearly aren't muscles beneath the skin. It's just... ug.</div><div><br /></div><div>
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</div><div><br /></div><div>Does your heart feel warm?</div><div><br /></div><div>Once you get close enough to human, we start focusing on the ways the thing is <i>different</i> instead of <i>similar</i>, and it's really hard for non-humans to pass that test.</div><div><br /></div><div>I think this is why Pixar very smartly dialed back the realism: instead of trying to be photo-real, they created human characters that looked like caricature drawings, or moving action figures (which was an ingeniously perfect fit, of course, for The Incredibles) -- <a href="https://youtu.be/ouHQI7lH8aI" target="_blank">these characters weren't human enough to make us go "weird" but definitely human enough to make us go "cute."</a></div><div><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCklEv-XRw-wMu5ZC3rl4EPkjhscmdY3lIrSRpGTVbaE_28Gii_njGZt5Da-rx3ndoOejVw-WFWBbiFB8NPDykDuQe_OMCkD9TiK24Z6xy-gx2aLbCMkCN1BFQRKUCcbG7Yex6QraGNdo0/s592/AbsoluteSparseBlowfish-size_restricted.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="592" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCklEv-XRw-wMu5ZC3rl4EPkjhscmdY3lIrSRpGTVbaE_28Gii_njGZt5Da-rx3ndoOejVw-WFWBbiFB8NPDykDuQe_OMCkD9TiK24Z6xy-gx2aLbCMkCN1BFQRKUCcbG7Yex6QraGNdo0/w444-h189/AbsoluteSparseBlowfish-size_restricted.gif" width="444" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>Exactly in the sweet spot.</div><div><br /></div><div>It was a long time between 2001's Polar Express and the next attempt to pass off a fully animated, fully human-looking character. James Cameron made non-humans move as if they were affected by gravity in 2009's Avatar, but didn't do it with actual humans; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYGzRB4Pnq8" target="_blank">Ex Machina (2014)</a> [one of my favorite movies about AI] did some very clever stuff combining a human actor with robotic CGI (this <a href="https://youtu.be/pY-kr8DgnWk" target="_blank">"VFX Artists React to Bad & Great CGI"</a> video shows three video effects artists discussing what they did well); the Marvel Cinematic Universe edged closer and closer to really lifelike with their remarkable <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZFyJjx8jo4" target="_blank">de-aging technology seen first in Civil War (2016) [notice him moving to the foreground -- daring viewers to admire the effects work] </a>and then used it to entirely recreate a young Princess Leia and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsuvXHGCVXE" target="_blank">Grand Moff Tarkin (originally played by the late actor Peter Cushing) in Star Wars: Rogue One</a> later that year...</div><div><div><br /></div><div>And even here, they got... 99% of the way there... but that last one percent made people go, "ug"</div><div><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6Yj31YCa3Xw" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div>Making nonhumans look and move like humans is hard.</div><div><div><br /></div><div>You know Disney's got bottomless pockets, and they're still trying -- de-aging Samuel Jackson for the entire Captain Marvel movie worked out, and when someone doesn't need to look human, they've got it down pat -- when Thanos lays Hulk out, it looks like it hurts.</div><div><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yK1YIRTaqa0" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><div>Now to be honest... superhero action is probably one of the easier places to replace everything with CGI -- fast cuts, fast moving body parts, noise and chaos: you can hide a bit of bad animation in a blur if you need to.</div><div>But there is nowhere to hide in a Kpop music video: one of the hardest things to animate is dancing, because it has to have gravity, it needs to stay within the bounds of what normal humans can do, a human limb changing direction on the right beat of a song takes <i>timing</i>, and not only that, it has to look <i>attractive! </i>Meanwhile, characters get a lot of facial closeups, and in a two second closeup, they'd better show us three or four facial expressions. Making <i>one </i>facial expression is hard for CGI, but stringing several together as happens in every Kpop video close-up? Yikes.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><div>So you've got to admire the attempt, even as you suppress the willies.</div><div><br /></div></div></div><div>And willies are the word for this first attempt by animation studio Pulse 9. A made-up, digital-only kpop group called Eternity sings a song called "I'm Real." The lyrics are the "robot trying to trick us into believing its human" equivalent of me walking into my son's school saying "Hello fellow youths. Why don't you say hello to your hep-cat new youthful friend. Let's listen to a Drake on TikTok. DAB!" (<a href="https://genius.com/Eternity-korea-im-real-lyrics" target="_blank">oh gawd READ THE LYRICS</a>)</div><div><br /></div><div>Brace for cringes, and watch this:</div><div><br /></div><div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XQMg8-Ku3JI" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div>So that was...</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwFGOQ_EUE4MK1vEts3gV5LUphxz5-PgFNI0W4vbAmvHgZMwPtUqasXZOGhbO6Cex4cvjmmKsRsLp-B69TZQjG41m5eeTBEKlNjxslB3cHgfv7TTTj4tN9oy0acvgO8zXItqE6H7tIwiSe/s320/aMR9D6YvzpVp7z07w46Gi4sTVztwoUw0sOPmLWXIQ-U.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="320" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwFGOQ_EUE4MK1vEts3gV5LUphxz5-PgFNI0W4vbAmvHgZMwPtUqasXZOGhbO6Cex4cvjmmKsRsLp-B69TZQjG41m5eeTBEKlNjxslB3cHgfv7TTTj4tN9oy0acvgO8zXItqE6H7tIwiSe/s0/aMR9D6YvzpVp7z07w46Gi4sTVztwoUw0sOPmLWXIQ-U.gif" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>(side note: here's a write-up below their Youtube video:</div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><div><Prologue> </div></div></div></blockquote>AIA, a mysterious planet-- distant and parallel to the Earth. <br />AIA is inhabited by aliens called AIAN, who resemble humans on Earth. <br />In the center of AIA lies the Red Crystal Flower, which protects AIA’s glorious civilization and happiness with its vibrant energy.<br />Thanks to the flower, AIANs were able to preserve their youths and lives for eternity.<br />However, the flower started to wilt. Not even the greatest intelligence and technology was enough to confront this crisis.<br />After years of struggle, the AIANs came across Earth and found out that the key to restoring life and energy was ‘love’.<br />In order to save their beloved civilization, AIA elected 22 agents who would learn the language of love from the humans.<br />[I’m Real]<div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">During their debut, Yeorum, Sujin, Hyejin, Seoa and Minji carry out their first mission: to signal AIAN’s appearance to the human civilization in hopes of communicating with them.</div></div></blockquote><div><div><br /></div><div>I don't know that every AI character needs a back story, you know? And especially not, uh, this, which should have stayed in the animator's personal notebook.</div><div><br /></div><div>But after that video and its reception... check out their follow-up offering.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/biIVEH7-Rao" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>That... given the starting point... that went from a faceplant to very nearly a flex. </div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3i_SzySuDM" target="_blank">Now, there is Rozy, the AI instagram model from the opening video</a>. (<a href="https://www.instagram.com/rozy.gram/?hl=en" target="_blank">here's her instagram</a>) She looks fake in... maybe 3 out of every five pictures on her instagram... and I'm sure that ratio will improve. An interesting thing they're doing now is giving these virtual models and 'grammers little blemishes so they don't seem too perfect (like Adam above) -- <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CR8h5SqH3pH/" target="_blank">Rozy closes her eyes in this adorkable way when she smiles sometimes</a>, and she has freckles. </div><div><br /></div><div>But she can also dance like this.</div><div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y8v_UXdBQtw" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://youtu.be/s586r8PMlSk" target="_blank">See also IMMA</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>AI modeling and deep learning are getting closer and closer to human -- last year, a Korean company revived the voice of beloved singer Kim Kwang Seok by training an AI to imitate his pronounciation and intonation, and getting the AI to perform a hit song that was composed years after Kim Kwang Seok had died. It really sounds like him.</div><div><br /></div><div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JZMj46C9WQg" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div>Next on the bucket list, I'm sure, is show all Meryl Streep's films to an AI (or maybe they'll aim lower and start with Steven Seagal)</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfamtTtFuz9ZQeE-c8-nCq1_h3etlViTBDWuCuFKE5sTeFcVcJyhfnw2L1OVyo82SbQARD2dUwW4WYYLUggdmHHKAUxnS_-upCD-6BwTnum0g0Ca6gUipiXr7iFZq4G1DeppTIPjSJLuWx/s832/da5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfamtTtFuz9ZQeE-c8-nCq1_h3etlViTBDWuCuFKE5sTeFcVcJyhfnw2L1OVyo82SbQARD2dUwW4WYYLUggdmHHKAUxnS_-upCD-6BwTnum0g0Ca6gUipiXr7iFZq4G1DeppTIPjSJLuWx/s320/da5.jpg" width="231" /></a></div>and see if they can't get a credible acting performance with CGI only.<div><br /></div><div>I don't know how much of the music video above was purely AI generated, and how much of it was based on models, but... I mean, imagine being able to do another Die Hard with 1988 Bruce Willis as the lead. Imagine never again having to hunt for the actor to play the next Batman, or James Bond, or telling more Luke Skywalker/Han Solo/Princess Leia stories, or bringing back the impossible-to-re-cast Indiana Jones? The money is definitely on the table for whomever gets this tech right.<br /><div><br /></div><div>There are a few big advantages virtual stars have over real celebrities, too. They'll never get in a celebrity beef, grope a secretary, trash a hotel room, get caught using slurs on camera a week before the film opens, or deny the holocaust at a press event. They don't need to sleep, they don't have labor rights, won't refuse a request because of exhaustion, pride or dignity, don't have (accidental) wardrobe malfunctions, don't care about royalty payments, and they don't need travel time between engagements. </div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>Sounds like the perfect employee, except that... I have a friend on twitter who feeds his kids with voice acting. I'd really hate for the TV, radio and video game companies he works with to go "Eh. We can do it cheaper and 98% as good with an AI now." It'd really suck if culture and entertainment turned into just another place where the powerful get more powerful, and everyone else loses even the little leverage they once had. (and the other ethical concerns: using AI generated images of actual people in pornography, which goes in a LOT of creepy directions, or using AI generated images of deceased people without their consent, which goes in a lot of ghoulish directions -- ever wanted a Roman Holiday sequel starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn? Ick ick ick...but those two issues deserve entire blog posts of their own)<br /></div></div><div><br /></div></div><div>I don't know if AI will ever be smart enough to win an acting award -- in the same way that substitute meat works in sausage but would be hard-pressed replicate the varying textures of a t-bone steak, perhaps AI generated characters will never be more than a gimmick, but I can't imagine entertainers are happy to have competition that doesn't need pay or breaks breathing down their neck. I know that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toSWCTYSypk" target="_blank">animated characters can have charm</a>... though that might just be the voice actors, and I know that underestimating what computers can do has not worked out well for doubters in the past.</div><div><br /></div><div>And if we're talking about AIs imitating humans, we've got to also consider deep fakes, and what that's going to do to the media: sure, an AI character from scratch is hard to do, but creating a spitting image from scans of a human model? This technology is already here, and it's kind of scary how good it is, as Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the South Park guys) show us with this web series:</div><div><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9WfZuNceFDM" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div>Readers: what do you think? Are we out of the uncanny valley yet? Is there an all CGI character in a movie that looks like a human (no green skin or whatever) and has solved the problems they've had so far? Will computer generated performances ever replace actors, voiceovers, singers, or dancers, or will they always be a gimmick? If they carve out a corner of the industry, what comes next?</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://nextshark.com/rozy-south-koreas-first-ai-influencer/" target="_blank">(more on AI influencers)</a></div><div><a href="https://analyticsindiamag.com/rozy-friends-meet-the-new-crop-of-ai-influencers/#:~:text=The%20AI%20influencer%20was%20created,%2Dyear%2Dold%20AI%20influencer." target="_blank">(And more -- a lot of this stuff seems to be mostly discussed in branding and advertising publications so far... where I have doubts about how seriously they discuss the ethical considerations)</a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-79336948117726672802021-09-25T11:46:00.003+09:002021-09-25T11:48:48.911+09:00Michael Spavor is Free<p>Michael Spavor, one of the two Canadian men who was arbitrarily arrested in China as retaliation for Canada detaining Chinese executive Meng Wanzhou, has been freed as Canada released Meng Wanzhou from house arrest and she returned to China.</p><p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58168587" target="_blank">He was recently in the news for receiving an 11 year prison sentence from a Chinese court.</a></p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W_EzZZTLqvI" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>I am not interested in discussing the nuances and politics of the issue right now, but here's what I know:</div><div><br /></div><div>Michael Spavor is a good guy who didn't deserve this. I've met him a few times, and a few of my friends consider him a close friend. He's just spent 1000 days unfairly detained.</div><div><br /></div><div>Michael's life has been horribly disrupted. whatever he had going on at the time of his arrest, who knows what the future holds for him, but I hope he finds something brilliant.</div><div><br /></div><div>You can hear some of Michael's friends talking about him here on The Seoul Podcast, and what it means for him to have been imprisoned for so long. </div><div><br /></div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j-x_GfPyU0s" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>You can also drop a few bucks in the <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/f4dxah-help-for-michael" target="_blank">"Help Michael Spavor Rebuild his Life" GoFundMe page,</a> if you'd like to contribute something more tangible.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-19376873599161524382021-09-09T22:16:00.003+09:002021-09-09T22:16:53.669+09:00Something For those Unvaccinated Culture Warriors (Satire)<p>Well, some people write earnest pleas when they are upset, sad or annoyed about something. I make jokes. </p><p>As we watch Covid 19 take a second pass at the USA, extracting catastrophic hospitalization and death counts almost exclusively from unvaccinated americans, and that is somehow <i>still </i>not reason enough to convince people to get a free needle, it struck me that perhaps the problem here is that getting the vaccine basically means admitting your over-earnest libt**d coworker was right, and if anybody knows anything about a culture war, it's that you can <b>never back away from a position once you've taken it.</b></p><p>But if you think about it, the anti-mask, anti-vaxx side of this culture war is getting a really raw deal: sure, the people on Fox News and the Truth About Demon Biden Facebook group call you brave, but the cost -- increased risk of flippin' <i>death</i> is just unreasonably steep just for scoring a few points and pissing off the libs.</p><p>So I've come up with a way to own the libs without backing away from the culture war a single inch!</p><p><br /></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rUIfy_v9ECs" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>Let's get on this! If a little re-brand is what it takes...</div><div><br /></div><div>Listen. I get how weird, hard, and unpleasant this culture war is. I understand what's at stake. I actually really strongly <i>don't </i>think mockery is our way out of this, and those thoughts might show up on this blog sooner or later, because if we don't find a way out of this, we're screwed. But until then, if you're in the mood for a little black humor, I hope you like this. And whether you're in the mood for a little black humor or not, go get vaccinated if you haven't already! Take care of the people around you. That's the very least we can do.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-22499208040565139832020-11-06T23:44:00.001+09:002020-11-06T23:44:07.534+09:00The Nightmare is over. The nightmare is not over. It's OK to celebrate a little.<p> The nightmare is over. The nightmare is not over. It's OK to celebrate a little before getting back into the work of it. Things do not automatically go back to 2016, but still.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Hsj6v1e3erukmeBYXJK1HYH09dsXbelcX_XjO6vHU_eqUvzlzvsELLl7oc82XxoSnrGnQFy6pn6nMkDKFWXSvNmTtkpUtVYbQSB_bJJVz3y1kNY2144G1hQvuX1_KAsHGJiavPXiHMn-/s2048/Screen+Shot+2020-11-06+at+11.35.32+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Hsj6v1e3erukmeBYXJK1HYH09dsXbelcX_XjO6vHU_eqUvzlzvsELLl7oc82XxoSnrGnQFy6pn6nMkDKFWXSvNmTtkpUtVYbQSB_bJJVz3y1kNY2144G1hQvuX1_KAsHGJiavPXiHMn-/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-11-06+at+11.35.32+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>I made this playlist of music that makes me happy. Be happy for a bit before we get to the next part.</p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL3vTec7eANFuaN6Qbmdmx25A6XVzlYKs-" width="560"></iframe><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-68795566291495235662020-10-05T11:11:00.006+09:002020-10-05T20:49:00.562+09:00On Trump-Biden Debate 1, and Donald Trump's Covid 19 Diagnosis...<p>If you've been listening to the podcast I've been doing, you know some of my positions on US politics. I have opinions, y'all! </p><p>So far, my favorite take on Trump's Covid diagnosis has got to be Jake Tapper from CNN.</p><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">CNN’s <a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jaketapper</a>: “Sick and in isolation, Mr. President, you have become a symbol of your own failures. Failures of recklessness, ignorance, arrogance. The same failures you have been inflicting on the rest of us ... Get well and get it together" <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CNNSOTU?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CNNSOTU</a> <a href="https://t.co/XXA5uC91Ea">pic.twitter.com/XXA5uC91Ea</a></p>— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) <a href="https://twitter.com/CNNSotu/status/1312766860279066626?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<p></p>
<br /><p></p><p>"You have become a symbol of your own failure. Get well, and get it together."</p><p>I have a feeling few minds are actually changed by these videos (before the videos, it was webcomics, and/or SNS text blocks) where one side of one of our culture wars has their position crystallized into a concise, clear expression. I understand that the function of viral clips like this is probably mostly just preaching to the choir so that they can nod along, pound the desk, shout "Heck yeah!" and feel <i>right </i>about their position. I even know that pickling in self-reinforcing content exacerbates the echo chamber/information silo effect and makes it harder for dialogue to happen across political alignments. I know all that, but still... that was well put. </p><p>If Mr. Tapper wasn't enough for you, I also made a thing that I'd like to share.</p><p>If you would like to know my thoughts about Donald Trump's performance at the September 29, 2020 presidential debate (jackass trying but failing to score a knockout punch, so combining the worst traits of a drunk uncle and a hyper toddler instead...but for understandable reasons, given who we're dealing with), the conceit that debates are supposed to persuade undecided voters (4:50), the thing we learn from his behavior by reading between the lines (7:24), his subsequent Covid 19 diagnosis (8:52) (so frustrating that there is so little good faith or trust that even a White House health bulletin has people asking 'What's the angle here') what some of those angles might be (9:23 and 11:20), the way this distracts from what we <i>should </i>be talking about right now (10:27), the tough guy image Trump's cultivated (12:04), whether Trump even <i>could </i>pull off a con like a fake Covid infection (13:10), or the people gloating (14:30) or wishing Trump ill online (14:58) and how that plays into what happens to Trumpism next... go ahead and watch this!</p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BAhkcWb7zCs" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>And... if all that political stuff was too much, here's a video of a street performance that I keep coming back to.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fKFbnhcNnjE" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>Take care of yourselves, dear readers.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-56364015410599024672020-04-08T12:35:00.001+09:002020-04-08T12:35:58.212+09:00Coronavirus CoVideo Corner: Rob interviewed by Rob<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A fellow in the UK has started a Youtube series during his Covid 19 stay-at-home quarantine, and by sheer coincidence, he came up with the same name for <i>his </i>series as I made for my plague film series!<br />
<br />
His name is Rob, just like mine, so naturally I agreed to be interviewed for his YouTube channel.<br />
<br />
I'm fond of his channel and quite enjoyed this interview, so everybody, please check it out!<br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FmS7EKtwwhU" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-90676853531151636152020-04-04T12:21:00.001+09:002021-10-05T00:24:07.693+09:00CoronaVirus CoVidEo Corner: Plague Film Bonanza: Part 4 <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
To Recap:<br />
<br />
Weirdo that I am, I'm commemorating the CoVid19 lockdown by watching plague movies, and because I love you, dear reader, I'm writing them up for you, and I'll end the series with a nice best-of countdown!<br />
<br />
If you aren't up to date on the series, the rules for inclusion or need a full description of the scoring, or you want links to the other installments in the series, I'll put a recap at the bottom of this post, <a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_16.html" target="_blank">or you can read the full description, the official rules, and find links to every part of the series on the table of contents page linked here</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Scoring:</b><br />
Films that fail to hold my attention get a <b>DNF (Did Not Finish) </b>and no score (that would be unfair).<br />
<br />
Films that hold my attention are scored on four dimensions:<br />
<b>Frightening</b> (Is it the kind of scary that builds up, and stays with you afterward?) Dread & anxiety get points here.<br />
<b>Scary </b>(Is it the kind of scary that makes you jump in your seat, or wish you'd eaten a smaller lunch?) Surprises and gross-outs get points here.<br />
<b>Plausible </b>(Does the plague, and people's response to it, seem realistic, as if it could possibly happen?)<br />
<b>Awesome </b>(Is it a good movie? Does it hit its marks?)<br />
Each of these dimensions will be scored out of five.<br />
Finally, for bonus demerits/points:<br />
<b>"But wait, there's more!" stinger</b> (Does the film end by hinting that the infection is on its way to a <strike>sequel</strike> new location?) That's tacky, and I take away points depending on the amount of cheesiness.<br />
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<b>Coming Up in this Review: </b><br />
<i>Antiviral (2012)</i><br />
<i>Maggie (2015)</i><br />
<i>10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)</i><br />
<i>Pandemic (2016)</i><br />
<i>Stephen King's The Stand (1994)</i><br />
<i>28 Days Later (2002) / 28 Weeks Later (2007) duology</i><br />
<i>The Invasion (2007)</i><br />
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Spoilers for every film, by the way.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Antiviral (2012)</b><b> </b><b>(<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2099556/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>)</b></span><br />
<b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />The Skinny: </b>This Canadian film was directed by the son of famous body-horror-and-things-that-go-squish director David Cronenberg. It's a science fiction film about a future where people have become really good and unethical about microbiology, and really focused and <i>also </i>unethical about celebrity worship. The protagonist, Syd, works for a company that collects the diseases afflicting your favorite celebrity, and for a fee will infect you with them, so that you can suffer the exact same sickness your idol had. We see one character ask to be infected with his favorite star's herpes on the spot of his lip he would have been infected if she'd kissed him. When we see him later, he is wearing his herpes sore as a grotesque badge of pride. A cell-growing lab has taken a few cells from various celebrities, and grown them into pieces of meat their fans can eat to feel closer to their idols. Ew. In the film, Syd gets in over his head when the superstarlet's disease he's put inside his body, and the people who want to collect it from him for their own profit, turn out to be more than he can handle.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Good: </b>This film knows its premise and explores it thoroughly. The premise is quite creepy and unsettling, so it is fitting that the film is very creepy and unsettling, too. We see the dehumanization of every single aspect, the sheer intrusiveness of <i>this </i>level of celebrity obsession. We see characters' ghoulish curiosity about celebrity gossip, health details, and pathogens. The film has a clear and consistent tone, and knows how to elicit in its audience the discomfort we are meant to feel about creepy, gone-too-far celebrity worship.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Bad:</b> To be honest, the performance of the lead actor just didn't hold me in the right way, perhaps because his character was so off-puttingly weird this choice may have been intentional, but still. The pacing of the film, and the tone, as well as the way it was filmed -- most colors washed out with overly bright lights -- was stark and clinical. A film this weird might have done well to recognize its inherent weirdness with a little more absurdity or parody. Instead, it was a bit self-serious, and never quite invited me into its world.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scoring:</b><br />
<b>Frightening: </b>This film had quite a few "That's disgusting" moments, but most of them were more in the abstract <i>idea </i>that someone would be into this or that celebrity-worship activity (news report publicizes the result of a celebrity's intimate health check, including a superimposed image of private parts over a photo of said celebrity - stuff like that), rather than the sense of looming dread. The horror is all in the sheer extremes the society portrayed in the film will go to in order to feel closer to their favorite stars. 2/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scary:</b> There were a few gross-outs with blood and stuff, but this was a film about obsession more than any particular disease. The progress of protagonist Syd's disease, and the idea of injecting a celebrity's virus makes it a disease or plague film, but everyone doing creepy weird disease stuff opted in: this isn't a film about a contagion waiting on a subway hand ring to change someone's life unawares. None of the main characters experiences any disease they didn't choose for themselves. 1/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Plausible: </b>The technology might be a generation off, and a <i>lot </i>of ethical compromises distant from science we have now. There is a conspiracy, and the protagonist's performance as he gets sicker and sicker works. The film seems to be a parody of celebrity culture, so of course the premise and people's behavior is exaggerated a bit beyond the threshold of disbelief and keeps upping the ante as the film goes on... but then the actors play it small instead of going big like actors in a Terry Gilliam film, which might have worked better with a premise so over-the-top. 1/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Awesome: </b>The film mostly does what it sets out to do, but what it sets out to do is so weird and off-putting that I'm not sure if I should give or take points for that. This film is as close to a DNF as I'll probably get without giving an actual DNF. I mostly watched it to the end as background while I was working on some stuff. 2/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>But Wait, There's More! Stinger? </b>There's a new status quo by the end, but it's just a new iteration of the same weird society and weird obsession we've been exploring throughout the film. No penalty, but no points for the ending.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Verdict: </b>If you like cerebral, weird films with slow pacing and washed-out lighting, you'll enjoy this. It's a lot of different kinds of weirds at once, which makes it a tough watching experience, but a unique one.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Total Score: </b>6/20<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Maggie (2015) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1881002/" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>) </span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Score: DNF</b><br />
I'm a little surprised by this one. I'm very fond of Abigail Breslin, and Arnold Schwarzenegger has done a good job playing to his strengths in the roles he's chosen over the last decade, but this film just didn't quite do it for me, and I tried twice. Maybe because it was late when I watched it, but probably because of the very slow pacing. It was attractively filmed, but too dark and shadowy. It's enough of a plague film to rate inclusion on this list, because it shows Abigail Breslin's character (Maggie) slowly turning into a zombie after being infected with a bite, but it can't seem to decide if it's really a zombie film, or a father-daughter film, or a sad meditation on the inevitability of death and loss that doesn't quite land. Yeah, there's some melancholy and some dread there, and it's sad watching Abigail Breslin's eyes slowly glaze over as she turns, and Schwarzenegger's character's agony as he watches this happen to his daughter is as credible an acting performance as he's done, but after 40 minutes, I started to lose faith that any payoff could justify such a slow buildup.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179933/" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>)</span></b><br />
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<b>Big-time spoilers in this one, by the way. I find myself unable to discuss the film without spoiling ...the thing. Sorry.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The Skinny: </b>This is a slow-burn thriller (just the kind I like) in the uneven, weird, and tangentially connected <i>Cloverfield</i> series of films. In it, Mary Elizabeth Winstead's protagonist, Michelle, is in a car accident, and wakes up in an underground emergency shelter run by Howard (John Goodman). He claims some cataclysm has occurred, and Michelle and another man, Emmett, must not leave, as a matter of life and death. John Goodman, in a fantastic performance, rules over the shelter, switching between routine and rules, and intimidation and threats to keep the shelter orderly. The film drips information out slowly, complicating things in both directions as we wonder whether Michelle is actually safe in the shelter at all, whether Howard is a good guy or a villain, and whether the cataclysm outside is scarier than the fellow running things underground.<br />
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The film is not obviously a plague film, but it <i>is </i>an apocalypse film, and part of the reason it's frightening is because for most of the film, the audience <i>does not know </i>what is outside the shelter, any more than the characters do. So... it <i>could </i>be a plague, and characters' choices treat that as a possibility, which is why we're including it here. There's some evidence it might be. Meanwhile, the film's constricted setting - it all happens inside the underground shelter until the... <i>thing</i> happens, and all we see of the world outside is through a tiny port window in the shelter's door - evokes the claustrophobia, inert frustration and helplessness that a lot of people are currently feeling in self-isolation.<br />
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<b>The Good: </b>This is the horror film equivalent of a sitcom <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_episode" target="_blank">bottle episode</a>: the setting is confined, jacking up the tension relentlessly. The acting of the tiny cast is excellent. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is easy to like in just about every performance I've seen her do, John Goodman is fantastic, balancing the line between helper and bully, flipping from sad to terrifying on a dime. His behavior toward the two young people with him are the acts of a man who wants to make routines work for a long, long confinement... but a man who's hardened and willing take extreme measures if he considers them to be necessary. The scenes are well written and paced, the sound and music work, and it's a heck of a climax. The end of the film references HP Lovecraft in all the good ways: I like filmmaking that shows the monsters through edges and corners, moving lights shining through the slats of a barn door, images through foggy glass, a single tentacle that's clearly part of a much larger beast we never quite see, rather than showing it all in precise detail. Lovecraft's way of looking at things much larger than human scale through a human's limited perspective really <i>works</i> in good cosmic horror. That was the good thing about the end of the film.<br />
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<b>The Bad: </b>First of all, we're all already in self-isolation... a claustrophobic film about confinement, isolation and paranoia on top of <i>already</i> being a shut-in might seem a bit much. Perhaps a film about someone on a quest, or doing things out of doors, might be better for my mental health at this juncture. <i>Lord of the Rings</i> or <i>Avatar </i>would help me get the feeling of open skies, when I can't get enough of it from regular life. Here. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhRFaY8A9cA" target="_blank">Watch this for a while instead.</a> For the film itself, the setup worked better than the payoff, in my opinion. John Goodman can be terrifying when he wants to -- see <i>O Brother Where Art Thou</i> or <i>Barton Fink</i> if you doubt me -- but by the end he was a bit over the top. I almost wanted him to shout, "Fee Fi Fo Fum." The biggest problem, though, is that after the payoff of the premise the whole film had set up, the confrontation in the bunker... the film kept going for twenty-five more minutes. Michelle escapes and <i>something is out there</i>. I understand that this is where the film connects to the other films in the <i>Cloverfield</i> franchise, and I'm always fond of films that reference HP Lovecraft's sense of the cosmic, but I kind of wish the film had kept the courage of its convictions: the first three quarters were an intense, confined film about constriction mistrust and paranoia, carefully written and awesomely acted... and then she escapes and suddenly it's a "monsters in the cornfield" film instead.<br />
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<b>Scoring:</b><br />
<b>Frightening: </b>This is where the first part of the film really shines. There aren't many effects: it's just a bomb shelter set and a few very good actors in well-written scenarios. But it pulls me in and makes me watch - and care - as a weird, uncertain situation slowly curdles into a disaster, as a big, possibly gentle man slowly reveals himself to be a monster. 4/5<br />
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<b>Scary: </b><i>Something <b>is</b></i> out there. And whatever it is, it's pretty horrible. We don't see much through the tiny A4 paper-sized windows, but what we do get is haunting. There's a short "let me in" kind of scene, but that's about as gory as it really gets until the climax. The rest is implied... which I like. I'm not wild about the new thing in film where people think that just because you <i>can</i> show everything, you <i>should</i>, and that somehow it's automatically scarier if you do. A film like this, or <i>The Sixth Sense</i> quickly puts the lie to that. 3/5 - the scares in this film are not of the "cat in a garbage can" kind.<br />
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<b>Plausible:</b> Given the fact that we're all shut in and wondering who in our building is gonna be the first to snap.... well let's hope things don't go to the lengths they do in this film, but the logic of the characters and the situation were good enough that I cared, and believed, for the duration of the film. The first part of the film was 4/5, but the final quarter was an entirely different film, and they didn't quite carry me along for that. 3/5<br />
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<b>Awesome: </b>I like how the Cloverfield franchise is giving us a cataclysmic event in bits and pieces, in the same way human protagonists would only experience certain aspects and corners of the entire situation. That is good. If we're going to have franchises and IP for our cosmic horror, at least we aren't getting omniscient narrators or fast-talking scientists who can unravel cosmic mysteries after fiddling around with test tubes and a microscope <i>explaining</i> things to us (ahem: <i>Pacific Rim</i>). That said, the film's two parts were just too disjointed, and going from Mary Elizabeth Winstead, scene actor, to Mary Elizabeth Winstead, action gurl, was too jarring. I would have liked an entire film like the first part, or an entire film about the second part, but smashing them together is like putting fruit salad on a pizza. 3/5<br />
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<b>But Wait, There's More! Stinger? </b>As I said earlier, this film explores one tiny corner of a world flattened by the invasion of a Lovecraftian monster. There <i>was </i>more, but the film also stands alone, leaving us to guess on the rest, one strong point of all the Cloverfield films so far.<br />
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<b>Verdict: </b>It's kind of two different films jammed into one, and either one of those would have been interesting and enjoyable, but stuck together with duct-tape and a jerry-rigged facemask, they were a little too dissonant.<br />
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<b>Total Score: </b>13/20. I wanted to go higher for Winstead and Goodman's acting performances, but I'm satisfied with this score reflecting a film that had a number of strong points, but could have been better.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Pandemic (2016) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3774802/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>)</span></b><br />
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<b>Score: DNF</b><br />
More of a monster/zombie film than a plague film anyway, but the pacing and production quality weren't high, and the zombie scares weren't gritty, surprising, or fun enough to make up for it. Standard box-checking, boilerplate zombie apocalypse stuff, but nothing to distinguish it.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Stephen King's The Stand (1994) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108941/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>)</span></b><br />
<b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />The Skinny: </b>Stephen King was big news in the 1980s and 90s. I remember my dad regularly having a Stephen King book in his hand during my childhood. <i>The Stand</i> was a four-part miniseries and I remember watching them in my teens. It was on too late at night, so dad had to videotape it and we'd watch the episodes the next day. The story begins with a plague virus escaping from a military facility, and from there it escapes quarantine and wipes out most of America and the world, I imagine, but American media usually don't care what happens outside of America, so we never see that.<br />
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After the plague has run its course, the last half of the series turns into... almost a fable and a tale of good and evil as we follow a group of (mostly likable or interesting) characters gravitating either toward the community of good survivors, or the community of evil survivors, and from there I guess they have to figure out whether the future will be more like Mad Max, or a hippie commune. I'm writing about <i>The Stand</i> mostly as a plague story, so my review will discuss the plague apocalypse section of the film, which is in the first and some of the second parts of the four part miniseries.<br />
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<b>The Good: </b>This film's cast was just loaded with recognizable faces, and sports a startlingly good soundtrack of 80s and 90s pop songs. Some of the actors, including Gary Sinise, Matt Frewer (Trashcan Man) and Jamey Sheridan (big bad Randall Flagg) do standout work, and the cinematography, soundtrack and production value are very high. I remember the first part (of four) being the worst, as far as chills and horror goes. The dying and dead left a pretty strong imprint on fourteen-year-old me. The progress of the disease, and the helpless feeling as the plague swept, unstoppable, into every part of America were done well enough that I still remember how it felt to watch it as a teenager.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Bad:</b> Rob Lowe is not good at stage fighting. This show has the same blind spot as so much American media, treating an event that would have worldwide effects as if only USA existed (or mattered). After the top tier of actors who do very good work, there's quite a drop-off, and a few actors with significant parts are fairly weak, or don't fit the rest of the miniseries tonally. If self-isolation is giving you vast reams of uncharted time, I guess 8 hours of content is an excellent thing, but if not, it's looong, and it is basically two different stories -- one about a plague, and one about a post-apocalyptic world self-sorting into good and evil. To be honest... for all he can do as a novelist, Stephen King's dialogue sounds kinda clunky in actors' mouths in a television script. He should probably stick to writing novels. And once the film moves away from plague stuff and into the battle-of-good-and-evil stuff, it gets hokey. With all respect to Ruby Dee, her matriarch of the "good" crew, Mother Abigail, a guitar-strumming, Amazing-Grace-singing, slow-talking, porch-sitting black grandmother, is the most magical "<a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicalNegro" target="_blank">magical negro</a>" stereotype who's ever magicked. She is also just about the only person of color to survive the plaguocalypse. Perhaps there are unknown antiviral properties in mayonnaise.<br />
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<b>Caveat:</b><br />
I don't have eight hours kicking around, and I already put in big hours on the <i>Planet of the Apes</i> trilogy, so I'm skimming the last half of the miniseries, where the plague bits are all finished, as the good and evil people all flock to Mother Abigail in Nebraska and Colorado, and Randall Flagg in Las Vegas. It's a completely different story, to be honest.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scoring:</b><br />
<b>Frightening: </b>As I said, the helplessness of watching the plague spread, with no cure and extreme contagion, is well done. The idea of a sickness that starts off looking like a flu, before suddenly getting way out of hand, makes for a sickness well designed for an out-of-control spread. The makeup makes the effects of the plague quite gross, especially for 90s prime time television. 3/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scary:</b> The stuff that could get past the censors in prime time 90s television pales in comparison to some of the stuff seen in the R-rated films elsewhere on this list, but they did a pretty good job within those constraints. The scariest 90s miniseries is still "It" with Tim Curry as Pennywise the evil clown, but this film shines past its low-ish television budget and delivers a few effective scares with some latex-heavy sick people makeup. There's a bit in the Lincoln Tunnel that is pretty harrowing, and stuck with me since I first saw this as a teenager. The impact of the early frights are also dragged down by pacing, but again, 8 hour miniseries, right? 3/5 - the scary bits are scary, but there aren't enough of them, and they're front-loaded in the first third of the miniseries.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Plausible: </b>During part one, Ed Harris plays a military general watching the disease unfold from some kind of a control center. Working like a narrator, he talks about the disease's communicability (99% - yikes!), and the impossibility of containing it, describing how the virus works: this is the plaguiest part of the plague film. The outbreak starts when a disease escapes containment at some kind of military medical lab, and the soldier guarding the gate loses his nerve and escapes the base with his wife and kid rather than stick around to die. By the time he's driven across the USA, he's spread "Captain Trips" at every gas station and truck stop he visited, making it too late to stop the disease from spreading. If a disease this deadly escaped a government lab, wouldn't military police be wearing better gas masks than the ones construction workers wear to filter out sawdust? As the miniseries goes on, it gets less realistic and more fantastic (fantastic meaning like a fantasy, not fantastic meaning great), it loses plausibility points, though it's still fun in a different way. 2/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Awesome: </b>It has its spots, and mid-90s Rob Lowe is very very handsome, while Jamey Sheridan's Randall Flagg is a nice performance with just the right mix of menace and mischief, but to be honest, the high points are spread out a little too far apart, as are the excellent acting performances. The music in the first half is really, really excellent, but trails off to boring mood stuff way low in the mix toward the end, lessening the impact of the entire story. If you're going to watch one very long, somewhat slow-paced, made-for-television plague program from this series, make it <i>And The Band Played On</i>, which is shorter, and much better written and acted. 2/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>But Wait, There's More! Stinger? </b>None, but everybody dies in the first third: there's no <i>more</i> to be had. No penalties, but no points.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Verdict: </b>The plague bits might be the best part of this miniseries, but they're over too soon and leave us with a totally different kind of story, punctuated by uneven acting and writing, and after alllll that buildup... a <i>deus ex machina</i> resolution.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Total Score: </b>10/20... <i>And The Band Played On</i> just got better and more poignant with age. This one... didn't.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">28 Days Later (2002) /28 Weeks Later (2007) (IMDB pages: <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289043/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">28 Days Later</a> / <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0463854/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">28 Weeks Later</a>)</span></b><br />
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<b>The Skinny: </b>These <i>barely </i>qualify as plague films: they're mostly monster/apocalypse films. I'm only including them because... they're some of the best scary films out there, so if I can jigger the qualifications to include <i>The Descent</i> in my social distancing/isolation films list, I can jigger the qualifications to include these, too. This duology is about a viral outbreak that triggers uncontrollable rage in the infected, and turns them into red-eyed monsters who snarl and sprint in choppy film speed. <a href="https://filmdaily.co/obsessions/slow-zombies-beat-fast-zombies/" target="_blank">I usually don't like running zombies</a>, because they trade off frightening points for scary points, and frightening scares linger longer, but the durn films manage to be frightening <i>and </i>scary, they kicked off the zombie trend that saw to the creation of a huge amount of excellent zombie content since 2003, and have <a href="https://youtu.be/f_UFqw3vm0s" target="_blank">one of the best creepy music tracks</a> in any horror film (2 of my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7W24CgR62M" target="_blank">other</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39szQy3TcH4" target="_blank">favorites</a>). So let's at least mention them, though my write-up might be a little shorter than others.<br />
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<b>The Good: </b>Hugely influential. Brought running zombies mainstream. Also a good creepfest with gore, excellent scares, excellent performances, and good direction. <i>28 Days</i> is probably the zombie film I've rewatched the most often, and the one that kicked off my zombie film fandom, while <i>28 Weeks</i> is the rare pre-superhero IP sequel that holds up to the original.<br />
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<b>The Bad: </b>Hugely influential: brought running zombies mainstream. Some of the thematic bits were really <i>really </i>on the nose, including the way they created the rage virus, the zombie kid at the gas station in part one who clearly shouts "<i>I hate you</i>" even though all other zombies are nonverbal, and the clumsy <a href="https://youtu.be/JbcuK8WBKE8?t=435" target="_blank">"Who's the real monster here?" moment near the end that so obviously</a> wants to make you go "oooh!" but instead made me go "ugh. Film-school preachiness." Click the link. You'll know it when you see it. Also, the very title: <i>28 Days Later</i> shows that the film skips a lot of the initial outbreak stuff that would have done more to justify including this as a plague film.<br />
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<b>Frightening: </b>Again, sprinting zombies are not good at dread. They're good at explosive, startling action. I think thematically we're supposed to be thinking about how rage and hate are the real monsters, but the <i>actual</i> monsters in the film are so good, I tend not to think about that while watching this film. The idea men would form the kind of society they did in an apocalypse is the scary thing in the first film that lingers the longest... but there's no follow-up on that in the sequel, which kind of takes the wind out of those sails. The first half of #2 is probably most effective for building the sense of dread and then paying it off with an explosive climax... only to jack it up <i>again</i> during the underground scene. 4/5<br />
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<b>Scary: </b>Some of the best jump-scares and horror action out there, in both films. Danny Boyle filmed the zombies' movements in a different film speed than the non-zombie characters, so that while being gross and terrifying, everything the zombies do is also just a little uncanny. It's one of the few scary films that uses shaky cameras to really excellent effect. The way it takes 20 seconds after infection to turn into a zombie creates a bunch of awful "Is it gonna happen? It's gonna happen... I know it. Buckle up!" moments in both films, but especially the second. 5/5<br />
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<b>Plausible: </b>A few people make some really stupid decisions, but the fear and panic response people have when confronted by sprinting rage zombies is pretty plausible, and the more I think about it, this is what makes truly scary movies scary: <i>showing </i>the fear they create in the characters. We see hardened soldiers paralyzed with terror, and the zombies seem much more terrifying. What's implausible is the very concept of a zombie virus that can turn a person <i>this </i>completely, into <i>this </i>kind of monster, <i>this </i>quickly. A virus just can't move through a body so quickly and keep its host alive. The first film starts in a science lab, where a scientist doing horrifying experiments on chimpanzees, confronted by animal cruelty activists, defends himself saying "in order to cure, you must first understand" (this is the first part of why it qualifies as a plague film), and the second film introduces the idea of asymptomatic carriers, and shows very <i>very </i>clearly why they are so dangerous, allowing me to <i>just </i>squeak this film over the qualification bar and include it. 3/5<br />
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<b>Awesome: </b>Yeah. These movies are awesome. The second film lags a bit in the middle, while the first adds a nice thing with Brendan Gleeson's taxi driving dad, who adds charm and humanity to the ordeal. <i>28 Days Later </i>is one of the most effective horror/zombie apocalypse films ever made, from top to bottom, and <i>28 Weeks Later </i>has one of the best horror opening scenes ever made, and a pretty dang good ending too. 5/5<br />
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<b>But Wait, There's More! Stinger? </b>The first film's ending is indeterminate, which fits the tone of the rest of the movie. They get away from the baddies, but they're still in an apocalyptic zombie hellscape. The second one has a "there's more" stinger. And it's bad. Not goofy-bad like cabin fever, but bad. Even worse, after such a tacky stinger... they didn't even give us the satisfaction of a third film, which is the <i>really </i>unconscionable part. If <i>Cabin Fever</i>, utter shit, gave us a sequel, I'm <i>mad </i>that we didn't get further installments of these two excellent films. -1 point.<br />
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<b>Verdict: </b>These films are so good I manipulated my qualification criteria to include them. That ought to tell you something. That said, I <i>do </i>have to penalize their scores because of that, since we're rating the films in this series <i>as plague films</i>, not as films outright. I think my write-up is pretty clear on how I feel about these films.<br />
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<b>The Score: </b>While my scoring system underrated <i>The Host</i>, it probably <i>overrates</i> these films, particularly as plague films specifically. 4+5+3+5-1=16/20, so I'm arbitrarily subtracting two more points because I'm <i>really </i>stretching my qualifications to count these as plague films instead of either apocalypse films or zombie films. 20/20 as zombie films, 18/20 as apocalypse films, but <b>14/20</b> as plague films is about right. They don't deserve to rank as highly (on a<i> plague</i> films list) as <i>And The Band Played On</i> or <i>Contagion</i>, our pandemic high water marks.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Invasion (2007) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427392/" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>)</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Skinny:</b> Peak Nicole Kidman anchors a tense film about a body-snatchers-like space virus that rewires people's brains to make them into a zombie-like hive mind. A spaceship crashes on reentry, and its pieces turn out to be covered by a pathogen that rewires people's DNA (disgustingly) once they fall asleep. When they wake up, they look normal, except for patches of goo on their skin, and try to spread the virus through fake vaccinations and barfing. Dr. Carol Bennell has to find and protect her kid from the space zombies who want to infect her and her kid and make them join the hive. Meanwhile Jeffrey Wright is a biologist who figures out (in a single night) how the virus works, and the last half of the film is a race to get an immune virus carrier to a military compound where they can use his immunity to discover a cure/vaccination before the zombie baddies catch him and eliminate the threat his immunity poses to them.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Good:</b> The film has a good balance of tense moments, gross-out stuff during the virus infection/transition process, and creepy zombie people acting uncanny valley all over the place, hitting a lot of get-inside-your-head quadrants in a single movie. Because the zombie people display no emotions, there are some good tense scenes where Nicole Kidman has to blend into a crowd by acting robotic... an interesting wink to her robotic performance in <i>The Stepford Wives</i>. Watching this, it was a bit nostalgic to remember just how huge Nicole Kidman was in the mid '00s, and what it was like back when our culture had movie stars.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Bad: </b>The original <i>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</i> was a red scare movie, where the zombie people were a metaphor for communism and the film was an expression of American fear of communism. We can look back and consider that quaint, but the film tapped directly into the biggest social anxiety of its day. While this film updates the story with good effects and slick filming, it doesn't seem to have a clear idea of what the new metaphor is, given that communism isn't an existential threat to The West anymore. There's an attempt at the end to shrug at humanity's warlike, ugly nature, but it wasn't well set up by the rest of the movie, so the "maybe the real monster... is <i>us" </i>revelation is unearned, feels tacked-on, and is trite AF to begin with. Lacking a clear analog to communism, or a direct connection to the kind of society-wide anxiety that helped the original land, this film just comes across as an attractive frippery. 2007 had lots of things to worry about -- Bin Laden, war, terror, media deceit, weapons of mass destruction, the "Axis of Evil" and a US president willing to lie in order to start oil wars-- but those anxieties didn't get enough play to stick. There is a clunky information-dump scene at the end where, in a single press appearance, Jeffrey Wright explains everything that happened during a one-year time jump, in response to well-placed reporter questions. That's a weak-ass storytelling cop-out way to wrap up a film. The film is slickly written and made, but feels a bit like it's going through the paces. Nicole Kidman is just too put-together and gorgeous to ever believe she's in actual danger. The twists don't land, and the final climax is underwhelming.<br />
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<b>Scoring:</b><br />
<b>Frightening:</b> The "are they zombies or not" guessing scenes worked, though the surprises weren't surprising. The device where the transition into a zombie person doesn't happen until you fall asleep was also effective because as Nicole Kidman's exhaustion increases, you start to worry whether she can stay awake. Problem: watching someone struggle not to doze is not great cinema. The device where a perfectly coiffed and composed person in a suit and tie is the villain is alright, though they never <i>really</i> get their menace on and make me feel like Nicole Kidman is in actual danger. In <i>Twelve Monkeys,</i> you see Bruce Willis' character experience legitimate joy, and real pain. Nicole Kidman looks great, but she floats across this film like a bubble with a $900 haircut, which undermines the intended creep-outs. 2/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scary:</b> One way the body-snatchees transmit their virus is by barfing on people or into things people will eat, which leads to some gross-outs and a good "Don't sip that coffee!" moment. Once they fall asleep and the virus changes people's DNA and rewires their brains, and some icky effects come into play as those sleeping bodies transition. The best scare of the film is in two or three moments where the infected people make gestures or facial expressions that are truly alien. The film does the cheap trick of using a sudden sound to turn an innocuous action into a jump scare. Boo. 3/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Plausible:</b> The speed with which they discover and implement a vaccine, and the ease with which this virus reveals its secrets strains credulity. More believable are the speed with which the body snatching virus spreads, and the reactions of people who realize their loved ones are no longer themselves. The zombie people discover who hasn't been infected by spotting people showing emotion, but in one ridiculous scene, (unless I'm reading this wrong) it seems that a couple of infected people jump off a building to their deaths <i>just</i> to prompt a horrified scream from a non-infected witness, so that they can grab her and infect her. I have never seen an elevator door open and close fast enough that during a chase, a person's pursuer wouldn't be able to catch up and get in. I don't understand why, if everyone is infected and part of a hive mind, only the six people who originally came to catch Nicole Kidman are chasing her. Why wouldn't <i>every zombie </i>on the sidewalk join in?<br />
<br />
<a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic" target="_blank">It's fridge logic if you don't notice it until you go to the fridge after the film ends</a>, and if it doesn't bug you until then, fridge logic is forgivable, but this had me asking those questions <i>during </i>the movie, which is not. 1/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Awesome:</b> Should have been better. It hits its notes dutifully, but never does better than that. The film never seems to have the ambition be more than a setting for Nicole Kidman to look absolutely great. During her peak, that was a reasonable thing to bet on, but this film doesn't quite manage to make it. Refer to <i>The Bad</i> above. 2/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>But Wait, There's More! Stinger?</b> Unless you count the "Maybe the real monster... is <i>us</i>" attempt at insight, no. But that's a bad, tacky thing in itself, so -1 point for last-minute message grubbing.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Verdict: </b>This film was well-made and starred Nicole Kidman at her absolute peak, an up-and-coming Daniel Craig, and an all-time premise. The end result is weirdly a lot less than the sum of its parts.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Total Score: 8-1 = 7/20 </b>7/20 seems a bit harsh, but even if I recalculate my scores more generously, this film won't deserve better than 11/20, and the fact I'm already having trouble remembering scenes and sequences other than "Boy, she looked great in that sweater" means I don't feel any pressing need to recalculate anyway. Pretty, but forgettable.<br />
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<br />
<br />
Those are the film reviews for today... remember to leave comments requesting films I haven't included yet, and share the series if you enjoy it!<br />
<br />
Once again, here are the ground rules for the series.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Series Recap:</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_16.html" target="_blank">Back to the Table of Contents, where I explain all this in more detail.</a></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Qualifying:</b><br />
It has to be a film. There might be some great plague television out there, but I have a kid: binge watching six TV series that are too scary to share with my kid this week is off the table. I think I'm going to add right now that it has to be a narrative film, not a documentary.<br />
<br />
The film has to be about a plague or viral infection. That is, the film has to put significant attention on what the infectious agent is, how it spreads or works, and what can be done <i>about the infection</i>. If the response is "we need to hide from/kill all the zombies" it's not <i>really</i> a plague film: it's a zombie film. If the response is "we can beat this if we discover and exploit a weakness in how the virus spreads" then it's a plague film. (So, <i>World War Z</i>:<i> </i>yes; <i>Dawn of the Dead</i>:<i> </i>no.) There's a little wiggle room here, and I'll be making some calls. Deal with it.<br />
<br />
<b>Scoring:</b><br />
Films that fail to hold my attention get a <b>DNF (Did Not Finish)</b><br />
<br />
Films that hold my attention are scored on four dimensions:<br />
<b>Frightening</b> (is it the kind of scary that's moody, builds up, and stays with you afterward?)<br />
<b>Scary </b>(is it the kind of scary that makes you jump in your seat, or wish you'd eaten a smaller lunch? Surprises and gross-outs get points in this category.)<br />
<b>Plausible </b>(does the plague, and people's response to it, seem realistic, as if it could possibly happen?)<br />
<b>Awesome </b>(is it a good movie? Does it hit its marks?)<br />
Each of these dimensions will be scored out of five.<br />
Finally, for bonus demerits/points:<br />
<b>"But wait, there's more!" stinger</b> - does the film end by hinting that the infection is on its way to a <strike>sequel</strike> new location? You know...the montage where the contaminated water ends up at a bottling factory while ominous music plays? Yah those are cheesy, and I will be docking points for them, depending on the amount of cheesiness.<br />
<br />
It's unlikely that any film will get a 20/20 on this scale, because frightening, scary and plausible are usually a trade-off: films that make me jump like a cat usually don't also make me fear door handles, and a film that does both probably asks for a big suspension of disbelief in the plausibility category.<br />
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<br />
<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank"><b>Go Back to Part 1 </b><br />Films reviewed:<br /><i>(Carriers (2009)</i></a><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Deranged (연가시) (2012)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Patient Zero (2018)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Outbreak (1995)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Bay (2012)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Perfect Sense (2011)</a></i><br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Go Back to Part 2</a></b><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">감기 (The Flu)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Black Death</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Pontypool</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Extinction: The GMO Chronicles</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">괴물 (The Host)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Viral (2016)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Girl With All the Gifts</a></i><br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Go Back to Part 3</a></b><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">And The Band Played On (1993)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">12 Monkeys (1995)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Cabin Fever (2002)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Planet of the Apes Trilogy (2011-2017)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">World War Z (2013)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Contagion (2011)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Go to Part 4</a></b><br /><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Antiviral (2012)</a></i><br /><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Maggie (2015)</a></i><br /><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)</a></i><br /><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Pandemic (2016)</a></i><br /><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Stephen King's The Stand (1994)</a></i><br /><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">28 Days Later (2002) / 28 Weeks Later (2007) duology</a></i><br /><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Invasion (2007)</a></i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">Go to Part 5</a></b></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">The Crazies (2009 and 1973)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">Day of Resurrection (Fukkatsu No Hi) (1980)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">The Andromeda Strain (1971)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">REC (2007)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">Blindness (2008)</a></i></div>
<b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />CoVideo Corner sidebar: Social Distancing Edition:</b><br />
<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">This post discusses a set of films about claustrophobia, isolation, boredom and helplessness: the feelings we're all feeling during our stay-at-home quarantines and self-isolation.</a><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-30632962728362357332020-03-27T11:17:00.000+09:002020-03-27T13:37:08.747+09:00What's After Lockdown? Imagining a New Post-Covid19 Lockdown Normal<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Roboseyo! Are you blogging again?<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBCWl_6XZIhyphenhyphentFTsxyz95pa4k1Mh2yr4XudgbZozJRMSJC5tsjFtJ44Fe1mp-7HV9GARx_KUz3bdRRN4ZhOj9rYRgqQ0AdRnIhuph3WQ21QGbeWET9kmndMjYpijCRvLYTSp-XzTOMxqD5/s1600/giphy.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="500" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBCWl_6XZIhyphenhyphentFTsxyz95pa4k1Mh2yr4XudgbZozJRMSJC5tsjFtJ44Fe1mp-7HV9GARx_KUz3bdRRN4ZhOj9rYRgqQ0AdRnIhuph3WQ21QGbeWET9kmndMjYpijCRvLYTSp-XzTOMxqD5/s400/giphy.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/how-korea-flattened-curve-so-far.html" target="_blank">Here's the thing I wrote about how South Korea flattened the curve.</a><br />
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USA just had 3.2 million people file for unemployment in a week. USA also just blew past China to take the world lead in Covid 19/ <strike>ChinaVirus</strike> TrumpVirus infections.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, US politicians are starting to float the idea that maybe a few hundred thousand deaths is just the price you have to pay to keep the economy chugging. (Seriously, fuck those guys.) That idea -- the "herd immunity" idea Boris Johnson floated in the UK is inhumane, and anybody who promotes it should have to pick which 20% of their parents (or beloved elderly relatives, friends or mentors over 70) "gets" to die to save the economy, and then sit at their bedsides.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/799/838/3e1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="306" data-original-width="500" height="243" src="https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/799/838/3e1.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">THIS IS YOUR FUCKING PLAN? Holy shit I'm mad.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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But... something's gotta give, right? You can't just lock down for eighteen months.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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I've been thinking about this. Basically... everyone's so busy responding to the immediate in-your-face crisis, but this can't be the new normal. It just can't. This cat is out of the bag right now. This morning USA <i>rocketed </i>past China and Italy as the country with the most CoVid19 infections. And US has not done <i>nearly</i> enough yet to flatten the curve, to the point now that it is too late for any measures short of extreme. <i>It is going to get worse in the USA before it gets better. The only question now is how much worse.</i><br />
<br />
However, until there is a vaccine, this thing will keep coming back. Thanks to slow responses in USA and Europe, this thing might already be endemic (that is, in the population and impossible to totally stamp out).<br />
<br />
So... what <i>is </i>the new normal? I haven't seen many places where people have thought about what the new normal might be, so... let's start the conversation. I said earlier that I think the key to South Korea's success was <i>over</i>testing, so that they got the number of unknowingly infected people as low as possible. That works, but not if the rate of spread is out of control.<br />
<br />
That means step one is: countries with out of control spread rates <i>need</i> to get things back under control. This is going to be painful. The things South Korea or Taiwan did to get infection rates down (tracking and massive overtesting) work when you have a smaller number of new infections to track, but not when you have a huge number. South Korea's system almost broke with 1000 new infections a day in late February, but it's turning out to be viable with less than 200 a day. If we can do enough tracking and testing to keep new cases below 200 a day, and continue to minimize the number of people out and about <i>who don't know they're carriers</i>, this could work. South Korean shops and restaurants and parks remain open. But first you have to get the number of new cases in a day low enough that it doesn't overwhelm the people tracking and communicating with the public about new cases.<br />
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Three or four weeks of Wuhan or Italy-style total lockdown is probably what it will take in a lot of places now. I don't entirely trust China's data over the last week or two -- it seems a little <i>too </i>good -- but weeks of sustained, aggressive intervention is moving the needle in Hong Kong, in Vietnam, in Taiwan. If complete shutdown is what it takes, to get to where tracking and testing is again viable, so be it. Total lockdown will work best if every country in a region is doing it simultaneously, so that new cases aren't coming in from places not on lockdown. Local governments need to make sure people don't run out of food (civil service and delivery companies will have to work together on this) make sure the homeless are off the streets (civil service and empty hotels will have to work together on this) and then <i>keep everybody indoors for four weeks.</i><br />
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For leadership, though, those two to four weeks must <i>not </i>be times of total shutdown. Those two to four weeks of shutdown buy them some time, and a better outlook when it's over (hopefully). Here's what has to happen during that time, and until these things are in place, ending lockdown is a bad idea, because they'll just ping-pong back up to pre-lockdown infection rates:<br />
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1. Ramp up domestic production capacity for infection protection. Surgical masks, sanitizer, gloves, facemasks, until everybody who needs them has enough not to worry, and everybody who wants some can get some. Make people wear masks in public, because if you're an asymptomatic carrier, your mask protects others. Control the supply if necessary, so that people don't panic-buy or hoard, but get them to people. I'm reading stories about businesses shifting their production facilities to making masks and other protective gear or disinfectant substances. Let's get those people in front of cameras and on TV, to add momentum to this kind of effort.<br />
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2. Find and mass (like, mass mass mass) produce a safe Covid 19 test that gets a reliable result in less than ten minutes, and get those suckers into every choke point where there's a lot of people coming and going -- travel hubs, airports, etc.. If it can be produced quickly enough, get it into schools so they can hold classes. Make sure that supply is inexhaustible before reopening airports and bus terminals. The new wave of infections in Hong Kong and Taiwan and South Korea are from foreign students who got scared and came home, bringing the virus with them. That means they're still getting through the airport. Let's catch them at the airport. Requisition one of the hotels near the airport and make it a quarantine station for as long as it needs to be.<br />
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3. Use PSAs and every kind of messaging available to educate and train the locked-in population about the new safety protocols to be used when lockdown ends. Develop these protocols with the advice of the best epidemiologists and family doctors around.<br />
<br />
4. Set up medium to long term screening and quarantine facilities in all airports. Maybe also bus and train terminals for geographically large countries.<br />
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5. Set up tracking and communication infrastructure so that local administrations can track, trace the movements, and blanket test possible cases based on the movements of people who turn out to be infected. Make sure everyone in the area is getting the messages, and checking in or self-quarantining if they were in a place that might have contained pathogens.<br />
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6. Get domestic supply chains <i>working</i> so that essentials are available, and will be, for everyone. Don't end lockdown until there are enough nonperishable foods, toilet paper, sanitizer, bleach wipes, facemasks and surgical gloves on all the store shelves (or it's being distributed in a fair and logical way) that nobody is worried anymore.<br />
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7. Middle to longer term: work with business owners in the service, travel and tourism industries to rethink or redesign their facilities with safety in mind. This might mean reducing seating in restaurants, increasing booths, or eliminating seating and making restaurants take-out only. This might mean getting every restaurant connected with food delivery infrastructure that has well-thought-out safety protocols. Make sure delivery services are not eating so much of restaurants' profits that selling food by takeout becomes unviable. Figure out what kind of layout and safety procedures from staff and patrons would make people feel safe (and also <i>be </i>safe) going to a movie, or a play, or a concert again. Make cheap loans available to businesses willing to make these changes. Going to a live show, or a movie, or a restaurant, will be really important for morale when lockdown ends, for people to feel like things are getting back to normal...and for people whose livelihoods depend on those services.<br />
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Social distancing and extra sanitation steps with full participation from society, paired with aggressive tracing and overtesting, seems to be working in South Korea. This means they could probably work in other places, once the exponential spread is a little more under control. Unless we want a return to exponential infection curves, this is going to be a way of life until there is a vaccine, and things like playground equipment might be a no-go even after lockdown ends. But there's got to be something <i>after</i> lockdown, other than <i>more lockdown, </i>and while everyone's at home stewing in boredom, it's time for our leaders to start imagining what that might be.<br />
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While I'm speculating anyway, here's my pie in the sky suggestion:<br />
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Shut down Wall Street for the duration of total lockdown. Shut down New York, London, Hong Kong -- shut down the stock exchanges for four weeks of a planetwide lockdown. And it works better if every country does it at once. We've got bigger things to worry about than stock indexes. <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/politics-podcast-covid-19-has-started-a-new-economic-era/" target="_blank">The FiveThirtyEight podcast I was listening to</a> basically said that this economic collapse is not because of a fundamental problem in the market that needed to be corrected: viable and solid businesses are shutting down for a reason that has nothing to do with their business plan or its long-term viability. It's just that we need to take a pause. The phrase they used was "freeze our economy in amber" until the public health crisis is over. That's what we really need.<br />
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Total fantasy:<br />
78-year-old (high-risk population) Mitch McConnell realizes that Trump is putting <i>his </i>life in danger, and Article 25s the fool. Mike Pence steps in and finds a few doctors who are willing to say the Earth is 6000 years old in order to get him to listen to the latest expertise in epidemiology, and we go from there. Hoping for better leadership all the way in November is too late.<br />
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PS: Since we started out talking about Trolley Problems, let's end with Jay-Z's take on them.<br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-45201629406584561272020-03-26T13:02:00.001+09:002020-03-28T09:02:10.073+09:00How Korea Flattened The Curve (So Far)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Might be time to revive Mr Rogers week.<br />
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A friend, who is a paramedic (and you think <i>your</i> job is stressful) asked me how I think South Korea flattened the CoronaVirus curve, so I wrote this for her. I figured I'd share it because hey, why not? These are thoughts I've had spread out over a number of Facebook comments and things, but seems like a good time to get them all in one place. There are places where I paint with a very broad brush here. Deal with it.<br />
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Also... this one ended a little bleakly, so in a follow-up blog, <a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/whats-after-lockdown-imagining-new.html" target="_blank">I wrote about what a post-lockdown world might look like, and what leaders should be doing during lockdown, so that they don't just get a repeat of exponential infection once lockdown ends.</a><br />
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Hi [redacted awesome person's name], you have asked me to talk about how Korea flattened the curve, and which actions South Korea took that I think contributed to that. I'm doing this with voice to text, so forgive me if there are weird voice recognition errors.</div>
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First, let's be clear, I think South Korea is not out of the woods yet. South Korea's big climb in infections was mostly from one super spreader in a city called Daegu. She went to a mass church service, and declined to get tested for covid-19, and was just generally reckless. At one point 80% of all the covid-19 cases in South Korea could be traced directly to this one woman. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/31-south-korea-sudden-spike-coronavirus-cases-200303065953841.html" target="_blank">Google “patient 31” to learn more about her if you want</a>. The number of cases in Seoul has been pretty steady rather than climbing exponentially, but also not decreasing.</div>
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<b>A Close to home Warning</b><br />
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Having a scare in Daegu may have helped in Seoul because South Korea's media reported on that in such a way that people in Seoul realized, “okay, this is a big deal now and we need to start taking precautions immediately.” We saw how bad it could get, and how fast... but the main center of Korea's population wasn't under the gun yet, and during the Daegu response, we got the mask shortage issues out of the way and found a workable solution that will be important if it gets big <i>in</i> Seoul.</div>
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<b>Early response</b></div>
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Next, South Korea’s leadership got on the problem really early. Part of this is because Seoul is such a dense city, the government would be recklessly derelict of duty if it didn’t have a contingency for this kind of thing. Seoul does contingencies -- we’re within range North Korea’s artillery, after all. South Korea also had experience with SARS in 2003, MERS in 2015, and Swine Flu in 2009 or so. (And those three test-runs mattered <i>way </i>more to South Korea's response than any bullshit "confucianism" "asian group think" cultural explanation you have heard in Western outlets. South Korea's wired-in, informed population saw what worked and we also saw which government actions turned out to be mistakes during those experiences (basically: transparency transparency transparency). Now those infections look like test runs, but it means South Korean bureaucrats were ready when rumors started coming out of China. They ramped up testing capacity <i>very</i> early, and checked the disease response systems, to make sure they were all ready when the disease arrived in Korea. South Korea has a very good corps of civil servants, because civil servant is a very prestigious job here. That helps too.</div>
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<b>Experience</b></div>
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I think there is a cultural element in the fact that South Koreans have gone through a number of traumas within living memory. The Korean War, violent dictatorships, colonisation, the 1997 financial crisis, violent suppression of democracy movements, and the 2008 housing meltdown are all within living memory, and were all cases where South Koreans banded together to get through a tough time. By now, it's like muscle memory. Other than the 9/11 attacks, which had an overseas focus, Canadians and Americans probably haven't been called to band together for a domestic issue like this since World War II - even after 9/11, the instructions were <i>don't </i>take precautions; <i>don't </i>change your routines (or the terrorists have won) - <i>return</i> to normal life to show Americans' indomitable spirit! World War II was probably the last time people were being asked to deal with deprivation for the good of the nation, as they bent the entire economy toward the war effort. Anybody who doesn't remember World War II is basically exercising these muscles for the first time. Not to mention, North America has a lone frontiersman, every-man-for-himself cowboy ethos that pushes against focusing on solidarity.</div>
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<b>Testing</b></div>
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I think the best thing of South Korea did was ramp up testing capacity really early, and make sure testing was available to anyone who needed it. Having a single-payer healthcare system sure helps with this. The fact testing is available to people who need it, has helped people to remain calm. The number of reported cases always will lag behind the number of actual cases, because of the coronavirus's gestation period. However, South Korea has taken some steps that have ensured that in my estimation, of all the countries testing for Coronavirus, South Korea has probably identified the highest percent of actual carriers. The real vectors for infection are people who don't know they have it & go about their lives spreading pathogens, so South Korea tries to minimize that number by any means. When I hear about places where it is difficult to get a test, that tells me there are lots of carriers walking around, unknowingly spreading the disease, rather than taking the precautions they should.</div>
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<b>Tracking</b></div>
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A big part of the Way South Korea has identified a large percent of actual virus carriers is through aggressive tracking. Any person who was confirmed to have covid-19 has been asked to share their movements in order to figure out where they have been and communicate that with the public. The government's emergency communication system has been sending out mass text messages saying “there was a coronavirus case in the Jung-gu district on March 29th. Please visit the district government website for more details.” On the website, it will say which stores the person visited and what time they were there, and what bus number they took, so that anybody else who visited that store or rode that bus can self isolate or get tested. While doing this might raise concerns about privacy for some Canadians, this kind of communication does not reveal a person's specific identity, and the public health benefit is huge because it has greatly reduced the number of people who are infected but don't know it and are acting as if everything is normal. In my opinion the biggest risk for Coronavirus spread is people who don't know they're sick; I think that's what happened in Italy where the response was far too late, and now the same thing is repeating in New York and Florida. It has been badly exacerbated by mixed messages and denialism from people who should be leaders, especially in the USA.</div>
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<b>Trust</b></div>
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This kind of extra communication has built trust that Korean leadership is on the problem and knows what it is doing. This has the benefit of helping people to stay calm, and it also has the benefit of sending a message to the people that "your leaders are doing everything they can; now here is your part: social distancing, hand washing, etc." In general, South Koreans have bought into these initiatives because it isn't hard to do your own part when you see your leadership is doing their part.</div>
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<b>Safety Supplies</b></div>
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It took a government intervention to stabilize mask Supply, but now mask distribution is organized where people of a particular birth year can get masks at pharmacies on a certain day of the week. This helps people feel like they can get a mask if they need it, so people do not hoard them and hospitals and healthcare workers can get the sanitation equipment they need. I think masks <i>do </i>help, they <i>are </i>good, and people <i>should</i> wear them... but healthcare workers need them more. If there aren't enough to go around, paramedics, doctors and nurses first. Once they have theirs, organized and orderly distribution will prevent panic buying.</div>
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<b>TL/DR:</b></div>
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All these actions together are the reason South Korea has controlled the virus so far. If you pull out one of those jenga bricks, the whole thing might fall. If I had to choose the most important elements, I would say aggressive tracking and social participation are the two most important (not to mention superhero efforts from South Korea's healthcare workers), and after that I would say over-testing and transparent communication are the keys to building up enough trust to get the amount of social participation needed. People who are calm are not panic buying, and not emptying grocery store shelves. You can buy hand sanitizer in stores if you need it.</div>
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That's the end of my message to [Awesome Person's Name Redacted]. Here are a few other thoughts.</div>
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<b>Outlook</b></div>
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Listen folks... it's gonna get worse before it gets better. And say what you want about Europe, it's gonna be worst in the USA. I think Europe has identified a higher percent of the actual cases than in the US, where a lot of people can't even get a test. In fact, by the time this is all finished, we might be calling it the America Virus instead of arguing with racists who want to call it the Wuhan or China Virus.</div>
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I have been saying to anyone who'll listen since mid-February that Covid19 is going to be bad in USA. As a country, USA...</div>
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1. is politically polarized</div>
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2. polarizes and politicizes <i>everything, </i>which leads to gridlock on <i>everything</i></div>
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3. has a big contingent who doesn't trust experts, and hasn't for a while</div>
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4. has a big contingent who <i>does </i>trust the world's loudest liar</div>
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5. already has a significant anti-science anti-vaxxer population who reflexively ignores/disputes messages from scientists and experts,</div>
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6. intersecting with a significant number of conspiracy theorists who completely distrust the media</div>
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7. but everybody already <i>kinda</i> distrusts the media</div>
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8. has an every man for himself ethos as one of its foundational principles</div>
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9. has a healthcare system that doesn't take care of vulnerable people</div>
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10. has a social safety net that doesn't take care of vulnerable people</div>
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11. has a state-by-state patchwork of labor laws and safety laws and emergency laws that introduce many points of failure for any massive public health response</div>
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12. has a divided politics where of the three branches of government, one is run by a do-nothing who seems perfectly content to let the poor rot and cares more about his team winning than the good of the American people, and <a href="https://twitter.com/i/status/1242959885823770624" target="_blank">one is run by the narcissistic personification of the Dunning-Kruger effect</a>, who is more concerned with making himself looking good and finding a scapegoat than fixing problems.</div>
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and, oh yeah...</div>
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13. owns a huge number of guns</div>
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I could not be more displeased about this, because when USA coughs, Canada catches a cold, as the saying goes, and most of the people I dearly love are in Canada. Is Canada ready for American healthcare refugees storming the border? Many other friends, whom I also love, live in the USA and I hate seeing this disaster unfold in slow motion, to their great risk and grief.<br />
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On top of that, the rest of the world looks to the USA, still, and how USA responds matters because it's the world's biggest economy, it is the elephant in the room in a lot of global institutions (many of them founded and supported by a previous iteration of the US) that <i>need</i> to pull together to mitigate damage as much as possible.<br />
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America might turn out OK, no thanks to the turkey in the White House. If it does, it will be due to the great efforts, wisdom and sacrifice of healthcare workers, state-level and local leaders, organizers and bureaucrats, and the kindness and goodness of regular citizens looking out for each other. Everybody needs to band together <i>now</i>, be a helper, support each other, and follow instructions of the experts and community organizers who are trying to make things better, while looking out for those who have ended up in a bad spot.</div>
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One of the weird things about this whole pandemic is that it's hard to calibrate exactly how much is the <i>right amount </i>of scared. Being not scared at all is reckless and endangers people. Being paralyzed with fear and making choices out of panic causes problems in a different way. Somewhere in the middle is responsible fear: scared enough to be careful and smart and calculate risks both to oneself and to those in one's connection webs, but also brave enough to help people, reach out, and support their friends in a dark place, and offer relief to those in a bad spot.<br />
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Mr Rogers tells us to remind our kids to look for the helpers.<br />
Adults; that means it's also <i>our </i>job to <i>be</i> the helpers.<br />
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Hang in there folks. This is serious. A lot more serious when I started my flip "CoVideo Corner" series. We can get through, but it's gonna take patience, kindness, generosity, as well as prudence and care from everyone on this planet together.</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-41784882778566400102020-03-23T02:00:00.000+09:002020-04-05T19:28:04.928+09:00CoronaVirus CoVideo Bonanza Side Quest: SOCIAL DISTANCING MOVIES<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hey there friends.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.madaboutscience.com.au/shop/science-extra/post/ink-chromatography" target="_blank">Source</a></td></tr>
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Feeling a little cooped up? Self-quarantine and voluntary isolation getting you down? Climbing the walls like a capillary action food-coloring and paper science experiment... <i>gone wrong</i>?<br />
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Well, self-isolation is getting to me, too. So I'm taking a short break from my CoVideo Plague Film Bonanza for a mini-side quest to mention movies about... <i>isolation</i>! Ever been locked in a room, not knowing when you'd get out? Ever reached the limits of what you could do in your confined space, but you don't know when it'll be OK to leave? Ever hear people say things like "We might have to do 18 months of social distancing until there's a vaccine" and thought "Oh crap. I'm losing my grip already after twenty <i>days</i>!" This one's for you (and me), before we all start seeing ants.<br />
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For all the weirdos like myself, who deal with the anxiety of living in a time of plague by watching plague films, maybe you also cope with isolation and quarantine by watching movies about isolation, confinement and claustrophobia. In case that's you, here are some films about isolation and claustrophobia. I'm not going to watch new films for this because it's only a sidequest to my Plague Film Bonanza, and be warned that things are a <i>little</i> spoilery, but while my discussion of the film might require me to reveal that there's a twist (in order to talk about whether it was well done), I'll try not to give away <i>what </i>the twist <i>is</i>, exactly. Here are a few social distancing films I've seen, and I welcome your suggestions for further viewing in the comments.<br />
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<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/corona-virus-special-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Here is the rest of the CoVideo Corner plague film series.</a><br />
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Now on to the list!<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Shawshank Redemption </i>(1994) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">IMDB page</a>)</span></b><br />
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<b>What is it: </b>I'm going to use this spot, and <i>The Shawshank Redemption</i> as my stand-in for all prison movies, and that's an entire genre of its own that would take over the whole list, unless I decide to include only one. I could have put <i>The Green Mile</i>, or <i>Cool Hand Luke</i>, or <i>The Great Escape</i> (though I haven't seen that one myself, would you believe?) here. Prison movies vary by theme -- some are Message Movies about capital punishment or structural injustice - but rather than <i>Dead Man Walking</i>, I recommend films that latch onto the other most common theme of prison films: undying hope and optimism, even in dire circumstances, 'cause lordy we need optimism right now. So give <i>Cool Hand Luke </i>or <i>Shawshank Redemption</i> a watch rather than <i>The Deer Hunter </i>or <i>One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest</i>.<br />
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<b>Watch it Because: </b>You know what this film is about. You've probably seen it before. Morgan Freeman submitted his application for the Movie Narrator Hall Of Fame, Tim Robbins made us root harder for a protagonist than we might have ever done before. Warden Norton was a truly despicable villain, and the reveal at the ending was pretty dang fist-punching-the-air awesome, and <i>definitely</i> the awesomest movie ending involving so much poop ever. If you need to remember that hope never quits and humanity is pretty dang resilient, this is the film you need. You can find lots of countdown lists of prison movies: it's an entire genre, so other than this spot, I'll save the rest of the list for other kinds of isolation and confinement movies.<br />
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<b>Score: </b>It's self-quarantine adjacent, not because prison isn't <i>quite</i> the same, but an excellent film. Five pinup posters out of five as a prison film, but as a social distancing film:<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Cube</i> (1997) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/?ref_=tt_mv_close" target="_blank">IMDB page</a>)</span></b><br />
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<b>What is it: </b><i>Cube</i> is a weird Canadian independent sci-fi/horror film where a group of six people from different backgrounds wake up in a puzzling maze of cube-shaped rooms. They find each other, and discover along the way that certain cube rooms are armed with deadly booby traps. They need to find a way out of the cube, avoiding the deadly booby traps, while also managing to come together as a team despite the kind of interpersonal friction that always comes up when people are confined together in a small space with life-or-death stakes.<br />
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If you are getting along with your siblings better than this crew, count yourself as doing well.<br />
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It's been a long time since I saw this, but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnuRpHkg0H8" target="_blank">it has one of the most memorable cold opens I've ever seen</a>. It's a pretty good film for its shoestring budget: it's not slick, but it's pretty watchable, and it was successful enough to spawn a sequel <i>and </i>a prequel. <br />
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As always in "strangers thrown together in mysterious but deadly place" films, there is a LOT of talking about the nature of the cube and how to get out. A LOT of talking. There are a few false resolution/twists before the real resolution, and the ending is one of those arthouse endings that gives with one hand and takes away with the other, where <a href="https://youtu.be/_mHt282wa2c?t=24" target="_blank">your cheering gets kind of interrupted</a>... but as deep teenage me observed upon first watching it, "That's what life is like though, you know?"<br />
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<b>Watch it because:</b> It's a high concept film that plays out its concept pretty well. It makes the most of a lickspittle tiny budget. You can see echoes of it in any movie where people wake up not knowing where they are, and have to figure out their deadly new setting, recent examples being <i>Maze Runner</i> and <i>Escape Room,</i> which was basically the exact same film, but with gimmicks and more money. You get to see a bunch of people in a new, weird, scary situation, adjusting to weird circumstances and worried about dying, while also discovering every single rough edge along which everyone in proximity to them rubs them the wrong way. So... it'll be relatable to anyone who's sharing a living space with someone in stay-at-home, self-isolation, or lockdown right now. Unfortunately, there isn't some "key" to Coronavirus that we can figure out. There's just a toxic mix of boredom, anxiety, and deprivation from many of life's usual pleasures. So organize a watch party with some friends, I guess.<br />
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<b>Score: </b>It's a long time since I saw it, but I think it was a bit draggy in the middle act. Excellent opening, frustrating ending, but hits the paranoia and claustrophobia of self-quarantine pretty well:<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Shining </i>(1980) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/" target="_blank">IMDB page</a>)</span></b><br />
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<b>What is it: </b>You know what this is. There is a shortage of perfect films in the world, and somehow Stanley Kubrick managed to make six or seven. Few films achieve the slow burn and gradual escalation, the increasing sense that <i>something bad is gonna happen</i> better than this. The overly bright hotel lights, the creepy twins: this film has far more than its fair share of images seared into the pop culture consciousness, but deservedly so. The acting is all great, Jack Nicholson has fun finally going completely off his chain, the jump scares are jumpy, the tone is relentlessly disturbing, and the claustrophobia of being stuck in a hotel at the top of a snow-covered road until the spring thaw is palpable. It's a perfect horror movie, one of the scariest ever made. The only drawback is that everybody's already seen it.<br />
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<b>Watch it because:</b> If you manage not to swing an axe through your roommate's door, you're doing well! Holding it together is all relative, so if you set the bar at "HEEEERE'S JOHNNY!" you'll feel like you're doing fine, no matter how white-knuckled your grip on things has become.<br />
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<b>Score: </b>Both as a claustrophobia film <i>and</i> as a straight-up film, this is one of the best on the list.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsSV55aIN2iqYjYtG6qsBZ2twqr-I3CbBSzShcnVxwEx_Y0qjX3AK_hiJRnG1XbkVr-0teCEG43QrNDtVHFvKNmumiyqNWiLWQHGUJHMqYplbovFsrnqOUEKSy2ZIk26GcvI56tFGf9A9b/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+1.15.07+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="954" height="63" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsSV55aIN2iqYjYtG6qsBZ2twqr-I3CbBSzShcnVxwEx_Y0qjX3AK_hiJRnG1XbkVr-0teCEG43QrNDtVHFvKNmumiyqNWiLWQHGUJHMqYplbovFsrnqOUEKSy2ZIk26GcvI56tFGf9A9b/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+1.15.07+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">5 creepy sets of twins out of 5. Ten total!</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/Room_(2015_film).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="260" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/Room_(2015_film).png" width="216" /></a></div>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Room (2015) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3170832/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_15" target="_blank">IMDB page</a>)</span></b><br />
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<b>What is it?</b> Well, after stealing scenes in her <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtrmWnFAHYE" target="_blank">mini rock-star bit <i>Scott Pilgrim vs The World</i></a>, Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) didn't make big waves until her biggest wave in 2015, when she won the Best Actress Oscar for this film. <i>Room</i> is a drama about a woman who's been kidnapped and forcibly confined for years in a one-room shed, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritzl_case" target="_blank">Fritzl-style</a> (the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_(novel)" target="_blank">case was an inspiration for the source text</a>, a novel). Her captor has impregnated her, and the film begins when their child is five. In order not to have to answer questions about why they can't go out, Ma (Larson) has taught her child that the room is everything there is in the whole world, and the rest of the world is just stories from television.<br />
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I hope I'm not spoiling it to say that they escape (though how it happens is a truly nail-biting scene), and once out, she's reunited with her family, but nobody quite knows how to go forward. Her parents had already grieved her, and did not expect to suddenly have a fully-formed (but also traumatized) grandson on their hands.<br />
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<b>Watch it because: </b>Larson's character, "Ma" in the credits, is a study of a woman who has been her child's literal everything for his entire life, trying to cope with not being that, but still having an incredibly intense relationship with him, while also needing to be his anchor as he deals with outside-world-information overload...while <i>also</i> dealing with her own trauma, in a family utterly unequipped and unprepared to help her with it. It's a complex, nuanced, excellent film with solid performances from everyone, and some subtle but powerful turns and realizations in the script. The premise is one of the most horrible things that can happen to a person -- sexual violence trigger warnings up the wazoo -- but the film's sympathetic portrayal of trauma and a mother-son bond is ultimately touching and powerful.<br />
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<b>Score:</b> Both for the claustrophobia in the beginning, and the feeling that the entire world outside has disappeared, and also for the nuanced writing and hair-blown-back <i>amazing </i>acting, this film is well worth the watch, <i>if</i> the content isn't too much. Important <b>trigger warning</b> for suicide, sexual and domestic violence.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9GxqmminynswcEgFJj_rvqn-CBnzM6ai593a5m6d-5D2nl4P81HfXITm-v3boD5KMXsTtv1Ma39IbgWsPwej0uk-zOjI4cyMvRTrDT5NzEtgGd6FIukhaCmtcBneYr48Hs_2FWYeO3890/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+1.19.54+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="1168" height="53" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9GxqmminynswcEgFJj_rvqn-CBnzM6ai593a5m6d-5D2nl4P81HfXITm-v3boD5KMXsTtv1Ma39IbgWsPwej0uk-zOjI4cyMvRTrDT5NzEtgGd6FIukhaCmtcBneYr48Hs_2FWYeO3890/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+1.19.54+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Five skylights out of five</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjEzMjczOTIxMV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwOTUwMjI3NzE@._V1_SX675_CR0,0,675,999_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="541" height="320" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjEzMjczOTIxMV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwOTUwMjI3NzE@._V1_SX675_CR0,0,675,999_AL_.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179933/" target="_blank">IMDB page</a>)</span></b><br />
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<b>What is it: </b>Another <i>Scott Pilgrim</i> alumnus, this film features Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Michelle, who wakes up to discover she's been brought to an emergency underground shelter built by John Goodman's character, Howard, who paints himself as a savior. As they spend longer and longer underground, he reveals his true colors. The film is part of the loosely connected <i>Cloverfield</i> films, which are an interesting franchise in the way they tell the story of a Lovecraftian invasion of earth by monsters beyond our imagination... but instead of doing the usual 2010s horror movie thing of showing and explaining everything until nothing is scary, it approaches the cataclysm through the eyes of the tiny humans who only witness tiny aspects of the entire event... and <i>that's scary enough.</i> In fact, by holding back the full story, it's probably scarier, and certainly more interesting, which is why, even though none of the <i>Cloverfield</i> series films is actually, top-to-bottom, an <i>excellent film</i>, I'll be there for the next one when it comes.<br />
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<b>Watch it because: </b>Excellent acting and some very good scene writing in the first half. John Goodman treads the "is he or isn't he a monster" line for a very long time, very well, before his teeth come out (metaphorically), and when they do... few people can be as terrifying as John Goodman with a full head of steam (<i>Barton Fink</i> fans know what I'm talking about). This was the film that inspired the social distancing side-quest, because I wrote about it as a plague movie for the other series, (while trapped underground, the characters don't know <i>what </i>is going on up above, and they take precautions as if it could be a plague, so it qualifies, just). However, the confinement, the inability to get away from the roommates, the way being close up together reveals everything about the people around you, even as you try your best to keep a veneer of politeness and a semblance of routine around your days like a sanity shield... this film gets confinement. And you'll be glad you're not trapped with John Goodman's Howard by the end of it. Your own annoying roommate with their knee-twitching and loud chewing might seem downright lovely after watching this.<br />
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<b>Score: </b>As a confinement film, the confinement parts are fully claustrophobic. The final half hour of the film, which is less confiney, is almost like a totally different film, which undermines the claustrophobia bit. If it had been an entire film set underground, it might have been a 5/5, but instead it gets...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlb7msHvlFfd7AX52SLvDaT6c3KyS_lmmodMWQ9JqtqnHgvEmeL7uYjGa3IsTG64BJ73_bcTqMSn888XjlRuViV_ESSUHHwnvlwT9gloIrBaez-XbXHeTyEFaiPZUeOpOEihA5TCdT3Njy/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+1.29.16+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="212" data-original-width="534" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlb7msHvlFfd7AX52SLvDaT6c3KyS_lmmodMWQ9JqtqnHgvEmeL7uYjGa3IsTG64BJ73_bcTqMSn888XjlRuViV_ESSUHHwnvlwT9gloIrBaez-XbXHeTyEFaiPZUeOpOEihA5TCdT3Njy/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+1.29.16+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Three drum barrels out of five.</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTI3NTQyMzU5M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTM2MjgyMQ@@._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTI3NTQyMzU5M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTM2MjgyMQ@@._V1_.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Oldboy </i>(2003) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364569/" target="_blank">IMDB page</a>)</span></b><br />
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<b>What is it: </b>Dae-su Oh is a total scumbag. He really is. You can tell from the opening scene. But no matter how horrible he is, it's hard to say he deserves to be trapped in a hotel room for fifteen years as his sanity crumbles away. Once he escapes, he goes on a vendetta to find the person who confined him and exact terrible revenge on him, helped by Mi-do, a pretty young sushi chef who falls into his orbit. His captor toys with Dae-su as he tries to track him down for revenge, but who, how, and why this is called a revenge film becomes unclear as the film continues. It is one of the most highly acclaimed Korean films ever made, with the same twisted, dark sense of humor <i>Parasite</i> had, but also the violence and rage that are signifiers of the type of Korean thrillers that often seem to make the rounds in arthouse circles worldwide. It has one of the best twists I've ever seen in a film, and one of the greatest fight scenes I've ever seen in a movie, and one of the most gut-twisting torture scenes I've ever seen in a movie. It's a movie of towering greatness...that's so bleak I have to mentally brace myself for about a week before watching it. Even after I <i>know </i>the twists. Of that genre of excellent, violent films starring menacing men out to get revenge on...something, while big-eyed women gaze on doing little else but being imperiled, films which always seem to make a splash at foreign film festivals - <i>I Saw The Devil</i>, <i>The Chaser</i>, and <i>The Man From Nowhere </i>are other examples - <i>Oldboy </i>is the unimpeachable best of the lot.<br />
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<b>Watch it because: </b>Listen, folks. Oldboy is a hard go. It is bleak as hell, and every character is awful. Every scene has the menace of violence hanging over it, and by the end, you'll want to take a shower: the scumbag protagonist somehow makes you root for him out of his sheer implacability, and you're just about to celebrate his victory... and one of the greatest cinematic stomach punches I've ever seen lands, one that hurts just as much on a rewatch when you see it coming. The pacing is perfect, the acting textured, the plotting is airtight, the twist is devastating. It is depressing AF, but also a masterpiece. The confinement part is at the beginning, when Dae-su is trapped in a hotel room for fifteen years. This sequence is harrowing, and the encroaching madness caused by his confinement looms over the entire rest of the film. We see how the time in the room sends his sanity spiraling. This might be the worst confinement film to watch, unless talking to giant ants seems like a cool thing to do for you. The only upside in this bleak film: he gets out, though only to serve some horrible purpose. If the sheer joy of watching a truly excellent film is enough to bring you joy, yeah this is excellent. But if films leave a strong emotional imprint on you, this one will bum you out for a while. Break glass only in case of emergency.<br />
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Score: if you are into bleak, boy has this film got bleak for you! It's the best bleak you'll ever get! But if you're not into bleak, this is not your movie.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE0NahEzEjgKfZs0ccIft8o0ENRtxG3IX6w8lGjR5-SfZok3yLiU3WUa9BdRGV03is3RGINXKjTwChhMPxonIS1sNYwnGTMXM7JHEp_3S4QDZi8WcG4j0c2SkU6LHAxhVB2edh1uZcmGjN/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+1.31.50+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="902" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE0NahEzEjgKfZs0ccIft8o0ENRtxG3IX6w8lGjR5-SfZok3yLiU3WUa9BdRGV03is3RGINXKjTwChhMPxonIS1sNYwnGTMXM7JHEp_3S4QDZi8WcG4j0c2SkU6LHAxhVB2edh1uZcmGjN/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+1.31.50+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you go for bleak... five claw hammers out of five.</span></td></tr>
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If you don't go for bleak... one "Run away" out of five.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="giphy-embed" frameborder="0" height="256" src="https://giphy.com/embed/e1Lv6Gvd8bFFC" width="480"></iframe><br />
<a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/monty-python-run-away-the-holy-grail-e1Lv6Gvd8bFFC">via GIPHY</a><br />
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<a href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNDgxNjZlZDYtZGJmZC00Mjg0LWEwYzctYWQ0MWFjNTM3ZmM4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTM5NzI0NDY@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,676,1000_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="541" height="320" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNDgxNjZlZDYtZGJmZC00Mjg0LWEwYzctYWQ0MWFjNTM3ZmM4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTM5NzI0NDY@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,676,1000_AL_.jpg" width="216" /></a><b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Chicken Run</i> (2000) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120630/" target="_blank">IMDB page</a>)</span></b><br />
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My goodness. It's time for a film with a happy ending already!<br />
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<b>What is it: </b><i>Chicken Run</i> is a charming, goofy film about a flock of chickens that need to escape their coop before they are turned into meat pies. Mel Gibson (remember when he was cool?) plays Rocky, a rooster who lands in a coop of hens and claims he can fly, and also teach the hens to fly away. They try some other stuff to escape, and mad shenanigans ensue.<br />
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<b>Watch it because: </b>It is one of the cutest, most entertaining films about confinement on this list. Aardman Entertainment, also known as the Wallace and Gromit people, are top-flight animators, and this film really showed what they could do. It's loaded with entertaining characterizations, excellent voice acting, references and homages to other films. Meanwhile, the sheer volume of throwaway jokes and sight gags will keep even careful watchers amused on multiple rewatches. Tonally, the whole film is about <i>escaping </i>confinement, and there are nothing but good consequences if they do, so you can safely root for the chickens to get out without having the rug pulled, unlike some of the films above, and having no goal other than <i>waiting</i> for our own confinement to end, it might not quite connect.<br />
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<b>Score: </b>It's not Aardman entertainment's best (that would be <i>The Curse of the Were-Rabbit</i>, but it's still excellent.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNUj4Oayz494n_Vgvu-8OQJ8dQD2AMtZpj_R6dv6O1LJpPmIZ0UE1lcNNN5kQz5J_Xecnj7PSQ1lRMEyuhColWGBoKAq-BPL7JNWsXkfMIP9UDTpltGNXbqusMhXIVpkWX5_y3Ia4fGZ9n/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+1.46.10+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="828" height="121" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNUj4Oayz494n_Vgvu-8OQJ8dQD2AMtZpj_R6dv6O1LJpPmIZ0UE1lcNNN5kQz5J_Xecnj7PSQ1lRMEyuhColWGBoKAq-BPL7JNWsXkfMIP9UDTpltGNXbqusMhXIVpkWX5_y3Ia4fGZ9n/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+1.46.10+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Four wattles out of five.</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZWIxNzM5YzQtY2FmMS00Yjc3LWI1ZjUtNGVjMjMzZTIxZTIxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjU0OTQ0OTY@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,671,1000_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="537" height="320" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZWIxNzM5YzQtY2FmMS00Yjc3LWI1ZjUtNGVjMjMzZTIxZTIxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjU0OTQ0OTY@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,671,1000_AL_.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Groundhog Day (1993) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/" target="_blank">IMDB page</a>)</span></b><br />
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<b>What is it: </b>Say, "I feel like I'm in <i>The Age of Innocence" </i>to your friends. Or "I feel like I'm in <i>Much Ado About Nothing</i>" or "I feel like I'm in <i>The Fugitive,</i>" or any of the other <a href="https://criticstop10.com/best-movies-of-1993/" target="_blank">most acclaimed films of 1993</a>. You'll need to clarify what you mean. Say "I feel like I'm in <i>Groundhog Day</i>" and everyone will know exactly what you mean, even though the film was nowhere near the most successful or celebrated film of its year. In a career-defining performance, Bill Murray guides the audience through this incredibly high-concept film which manages to be a quality comedy, a sweet romance, a nostalgic piece of small-town Americana, a harrowing existential treatise, and a meditation on living one's best life, delivering on all levels. Bill Murray plays Phil, a cynical newsman who discovers no matter what he does, he keeps reliving the same day over and over. Hijinks ensue as he figures out what to do about his predicament, and his journey is by turns hilarious, sad, and ultimately uplifting as he tries to figure out how to break the loop. It's an all-time great film premise, executed wonderfully.<br />
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<b>Watch it because: </b>I'll admit, classic that it is, I haven't rewatched this film in a long, long time, yet I remember it surprisingly vividly. While this film isn't about confinement or quarantine in the way other of these films are, for those of us suddenly with vast reams of unstructured time, it is the film that most closely examines the range of emotions we are feeling when Every. Day. Is. Exactly. The. Same. as every other. I am intrigued by the way this film has gotten better and better (or at least better remembered) with age. But in the generation since it came out to slightly above average critical response and middling box office success, it has become a cherished and revered film, and vaulted past much better-regarded (at the time) films on best-of lists.<br />
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Moreover: if Bill Murray can use repetition, and the boredom of living the same day again and again, and find ways to become a better person... the most hopeful part of the film is that maybe we can, too! For such a deep film, that goes to such dark places, the end is surprisingly hopeful, but in a way that is earned, and not cheap. To be honest... this is probably the film I recommend the most out of the entire list.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlC_egEkoJ4JtHrmnWfzJRKW0F_qj8Xebo6R4mNZtOf-9wt-cQiICB0-YxtRsYqbY7VyoS7BUi8FoObJXXTvTXcpSpLK4DiU7qCzr3BwT74yVE2LLXcCO1pJdkN0JrcWzKRdvKgDSsLWe2/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+11.25.29+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="166" data-original-width="1126" height="47" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlC_egEkoJ4JtHrmnWfzJRKW0F_qj8Xebo6R4mNZtOf-9wt-cQiICB0-YxtRsYqbY7VyoS7BUi8FoObJXXTvTXcpSpLK4DiU7qCzr3BwT74yVE2LLXcCO1pJdkN0JrcWzKRdvKgDSsLWe2/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+11.25.29+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Five Clock Radios out of five. It's only a single listicle, so <br />why waste time reviewing the bad social distancing films?</span></td></tr>
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I'm giving out a lot of high scores here. What can I say? In the space of a single article, why would I waste time reviewing the crappy self-isolation, claustrophobia or confinement films?<br />
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<a href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjA5NzQ1NTgwNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjUxMzUzMw@@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,674,1000_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="539" height="320" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjA5NzQ1NTgwNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjUxMzUzMw@@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,674,1000_AL_.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Descent (2005) (IMDB page)</span></b><br />
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<b>What is it: </b>Only one of the best horror films of the century! A close-knit group of women meet up to overcome their fears and traumas by spelunking: exploring an unmapped cave in the Appalachian mountains for a girls' weekend away. Of course, they take a wrong turn, get lost, and start to suspect <i>something else is down there.</i> Their effort to escape will test their bonds, and their individual limits in ways you couldn't imagine (I'm so sad the age of VHS casette boxes has passed, so I can't get a job writing the back-case summaries).<br />
<br />
<b>Watch it because: </b>Holy cow. It's one of the three or four scariest movies I've ever seen, so if you need the catharsis of a good chill, or a fantastic jump scare, this one delivers. But also... the way the actors interact at the beginning sells their love and loyalty for each other, so that you <i>care </i>when things start to happen underground. None of the actors are well-known, which makes the film more about the group as a whole than a single protagonist or hero, and increases the sense that anything could happen, and <i>any </i>of them could be next, because there's no Charlize Theron character walking around with plot armor on. The horror part all happens underground, and it's lit by flares, flashlights, matches and headlamps, so that the dark becomes truly terrifying (this effect is sometimes cheesy, but it's well done here, letting the imagination do the work, but also showing enough to properly horrify). The film hits all the anxiety quadrants, with jump scares, looming dread, shadowed uncertainty, gross and painful injury, and fear borne of the love the friends have for each other, as their fear of losing each other amplifies the outright fear baked into the situation. It fits the confinement theme because they're trapped underground, in a dark place they can't escape, and the film uses claustrophobia to scarier effect than just about any movie I've seen.<br />
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<b>Score: </b>Like I said, I'm only reviewing the <i>good </i>claustrophobia and cabin fever films in this list, because it's a one-off, so don't be that surprised at all the high ratings: you're only getting the cream here. If I went down my list to the second and third tier of confinement and cramped-in ennui films, we'd see more low ratings, but why waste your time on that? This film is gut-wrenching, terrifying, intense and relentless, and it all happens to a group of characters you care about. Self-isolation might be tough, but at least you don't have as tough as this!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxCbrK3mSC3fRGj38lcKX2L3JMlPnsyK2FWYIgiO0xC5tep5sX1TIrMiOrIhRo8iOqgShOXzwQCruhcaUTEdLbkJdRa2QSyUZ47awWj2uoPa07xuQ_uBnVJA4eg1EUchpP3zICPrDRJFpN/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+6.52.48+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="178" data-original-width="814" height="69" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxCbrK3mSC3fRGj38lcKX2L3JMlPnsyK2FWYIgiO0xC5tep5sX1TIrMiOrIhRo8iOqgShOXzwQCruhcaUTEdLbkJdRa2QSyUZ47awWj2uoPa07xuQ_uBnVJA4eg1EUchpP3zICPrDRJFpN/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+6.52.48+PM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Five spelunking helmets out of five.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(backup choice:)</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4nU7PmIxe05t-RRKVQd8nQ-R19iWlNO0S-P6p976OxpTuo7NuBECpZhNW3JFK1-Gg6VxFfWfgIbjDQ-CTbpMtwUVZ2Uk1C3eT6mRorPeG7niSxy7glvy_-ngCJDplsfPjbv11armxpILQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+7.02.10+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="198" data-original-width="708" height="89" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4nU7PmIxe05t-RRKVQd8nQ-R19iWlNO0S-P6p976OxpTuo7NuBECpZhNW3JFK1-Gg6VxFfWfgIbjDQ-CTbpMtwUVZ2Uk1C3eT6mRorPeG7niSxy7glvy_-ngCJDplsfPjbv11armxpILQ/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-03-23+at+7.02.10+PM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Five pairs of brown pants out of five.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Listen, folks. This is tough. We're all taking a hit for the greater good, but it ain't easy, and don't forget that if you're in a spot where finding ways to fill your time is your worst worry, you're doing a lot better off than some. Between <i>Groundhog Day</i> and <i>Chicken Run</i>, maybe take a minute to reach out to your special people who are in bad way. Send them a box of something yummy, a cash transfer if you can, something funny on their Facebook wall, or a message or a call - whatever helps them most - to let them know you're thinking of them. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LGHtc_D328" target="_blank">Look for the helpers... but moreover, <i>be</i> a helper</a>.<br />
<br />
Self-quarantine/stay-at-home/lockdown is a slog. It mixes the worst aspects of boredom and fear in the most toxic way possible. So if you cope by watching movie comfort food (ayo, Inigo Montoya!) or something highfalutin' (Palme d'Or Winner Marathon!) or if you want to go for road movies -- the exact <i>opposite</i> of our experience, that's fine. <i>About </i>this experience... well, some interesting artists have dug into the minutiae of confinement, claustrophobia and helplessness in interesting ways, and if that helps us remember that we're not alone feeling this way, not alone climbing the walls and getting twitchy and curt, maybe that'll be a balm for some of us, too. Enjoy these picks, and sound off in the comments if you think of one I missed.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Cut for length, or because we have a <i>lot</i> of depressing movies on this list already:</b><br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073486/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest</a> </i>has a lot of trapped-and-can't-get-out themes. It's also one of the best-acted movies you'll ever see, and the one that made Jack Nicholson a star.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077416/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">The Deer Hunter</a></i> is a brilliant but quite depressing examination of post-imprisonment trauma. I hope none of your social distancing experiences are as harrowing as the men in this film, and that we all come out of this whole.<br />
<br />
Holocaust films - there are a whole swack of films about the Holocaust that riff on themes of escape, confinement and helplessness. They are all terribly sad, and I certainly hope things don't get this bad, so <i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084707/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Sophie's Choice</a></i>, <i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108052/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Schindler's List</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0253474/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">The Pianist</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093170/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Men Behind The Sun</a> </i>(about Japanese experimentation in Unit 731, and one of the toughest watches ever)<i> </i>and others might not be good for your mental balance if isolation is already hard enough.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102926/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Silence of the Lambs</a></i>: the big baddie in this film confines his victims, and Hannibal Lecter spends all his scenes in various extreme maximum security prison cells and constraints. It's a perfect movie, with a satisfying ending, and characters who escape their different prisons, but I simply didn't want to overload the list with horror films, and everybody already knows about this film anyway.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0242527/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_49" target="_blank">The Hole</a></i>: Another thriller (another genre that threatened to overload the list) starring Thora Birch (the daughter from <i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169547/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">American Beauty</a></i>) and Keira Knightley (the sugar-plum fairy from <i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5523010/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_6" target="_blank">The Nutcracker and the Four Realms</a></i>). A bunch of teens go party in an underground bomb shelter... and lose the key to get out. Shit gets rough, but some interesting stuff happens with changing storylines and unreliable narrators.<br />
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<i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480249/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">I Am Legend</a></i>: A <i>lot</i> of solitude in this film, and frankly the solitude bit is the best part of the film. I'm not writing it up because the anxiety in this film is of an entirely different kind, and I might cover it for the Plague Film series, anyway. An interesting film that could have been more than it was.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Wall-E</a></i>: Another film that opens with a brilliantly spare, yet rich portrayal of solitude. Highly recommended. In fact, if I didn't have other stuff to do, I might have given it a write-up, now that I think of it, not to mention, the plot doesn't start moving until the solitude <i>ends</i>.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162222/" target="_blank">Cast Away</a>: </i>An iconic performance by peak Tom Hanks, a sweet romantic comedy involving a volleyball, a sad look at the possibility we can't just <i>go back to the way things were</i>... but the amount of time Tom Hanks spends on a beach just <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkYRI48bXRw" target="_blank">made me angry about those stupid spring-breakers again</a>. Give it a look; you know what this one is about without a write-up.<br />
<br />
Other films about isolation that came to mind:<br />
Weirdly... Home Alone<br />
<br />
<b>Haven't seen it but... corner...</b><br />
<br />
I think I'm going to watch "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462758/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Buried</a>" (2010) in which Ryan Reynolds wakes up trapped in a coffin.<br />
<br />
There is a <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054407/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">1960 French film called <i>The Hole</i></a> <i>(Le Trou)</i> which I've heard is fantastic, but I haven't seen it. There is also a <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1085779/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2" target="_blank">2009 film with the same name</a> whose trailer didn't really grab me.<br />
<br />
I've heard the Japanese film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0235198/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank"><i>Audition</i></a> fits the isolation/confinement motif, thanks to a certain cloth bag, and it is a must-see if you're into body horror, which I am. I've winced away from this one basically because Japanese body horror and gore films go hard ... I've heard what happens, and I just can't quite bring myself to see it, which kind of surprises me because usually I'm all about that messed up stuff.<br />
<br />
<br />
Final random thought: The prison movie is the exact opposite genre of the road movie. How about that.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">CoVideo Corner Plague Film Bonanza Series Recap:</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>This is the blog series where I write review films about plagues, outbreaks and epidemics.</b><br />
<b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_16.html" target="_blank">Go to the Table of Contents, where I explain all this in more detail.</a></b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/corona-virus-special-plague-film.html" target="_blank"><b>Go to Part 1</b></a><br />
<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/corona-virus-special-plague-film.html" target="_blank"><i>(Carriers (2009)</i></a><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/corona-virus-special-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Deranged (연가시) (2012)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/corona-virus-special-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Patient Zero (2018)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/corona-virus-special-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Outbreak (1995)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/corona-virus-special-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Bay (2012)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/corona-virus-special-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Perfect Sense (2011)</a></i><br />
<br />
<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank"><b>Go to Part 2</b></a><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">감기 (The Flu)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Black Death</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Pontypool</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Extinction: The GMO Chronicles</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">괴물 (The Host)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Viral (2016)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Girl With All the Gifts</a></i><br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Go to Part 3</a></b><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">And The Band Played On (1993)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">12 Monkeys (1995)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Cabin Fever (2002)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Planet of the Apes Trilogy (2011-2017)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">World War Z (2013)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Contagion (2011)</a></i><br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Go to Part 4</a></b><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Antiviral (2012)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Maggie (2015)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Pandemic (2016)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Stephen King's The Stand (1994)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">28 Days Later (2002) / 28 Weeks Later (2007) duology</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Invasion (2007)</a></i><br />
<br />
<b>This was the CoVideo Corner sidebar: Social Distancing Edition:</b><br />
<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">This post discusses a set of films about claustrophobia, isolation, boredom and helplessness: the feelings we're all feeling during our stay-at-home quarantines and self-isolation</a><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">The Shawshank Redemption (1994)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Cube (1997)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">The Shining (1980)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Room (2015)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Oldboy (2003)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Chicken Run (2000)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Groundhog Day (1993)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">The Descent (2005)</a></i><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-25954340319905102102020-03-16T10:39:00.002+09:002021-10-05T00:33:12.774+09:00CoronaVirus CoVidEo Corner: Plague Film Bonanza Table of Contents<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Plague Film Bonanza has sprawled large enough to require a central control and table of contents, so I'll have the rules here, and links to each of the installments.<br />
<br />
To Recap:<br />
<br />
Weirdo that I am, I'm commemorating the CoVid19 lockdown by watching plague movies. Some people cope with stress and anxiety by rewatching <i>The Princess Bride </i>or <i>Singin' In The Rain</i>, but I do it by going dark. If you also deal with uncertainty by watching movies about <i>other </i>people in even <i>more </i>stressful situations, this here is for you!<br />
<br />
Maybe you dealt with a coming lockdown by buying (or trying to buy) facemasks, hand sanitizer, and ungodly amounts of toilet paper, or adjusting weekend plans. Well, I went and found every movie about infectious diseases I could and have been watching them one by one. So if you're housebound anyway, why not pass the time scaring the crap out of yourself, right?<br />
<br />
I'm writing mini-reviews of some classic, less-than-classic, and absolute garbage plague films, and because I love you, I'm writing them up for you, readers, and I'll end the series with a nice best-of countdown!<br />
<br />
To sum up the ground rules:<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Qualifying:</span></b><br />
<br />
<b>Rule 1: </b><i>It has to be a narrative film.</i> There might be some great plague television out there, but I have a kid who is apparently studying from home until he is forty: binging entire seasons of TV series' that are too scary to share with him is off the table. Documentaries would require an entirely different scoring system, so they're out, too. Most, but not all the films here are fiction, and I'm limiting the series to narrative films.<br />
<br />
<b>Rule 2: </b><i>The film has to be about a plague or viral infection.</i> That is, it must put significant attention on what the infectious agent is, how it spreads or works, and what can be done <i>about the infection</i>. If the response is "we need to hide from/kill all the zombies" (<i>Dawn of the Dead</i>) it's not <i>really</i> a plague film: it's a zombie or monster film. If the response is "we can beat this if we discover and exploit a weakness in how the virus spreads" (<i>World War Z</i>) then it's a plague film. Another example: if the vial of plague pathogen in <i>Mission: Impossible 2</i> were replaced with a computer chip, or a piece of microfilm, the rest of the film basically wouldn't change. <i>Mission: Impossible 2</i> is a <a href="https://www.blogger.com/%22https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin%22" target=""_blank"">MacGuffin</a> chase, not really a plague film. There's a little wiggle room here, and I'll be making some calls. Deal with it.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Theory of Scary Movies (context):</span></b><br />
<br />
Films that hold my attention are scored on four dimensions, with one bonus category, but for my first two categories, I need to explain my theory of scary movies.<br />
<br />
Because plague films are usually scary, I need to explain that there are two ways scary movies scare us. Think of Alfred Hitchcock's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/728496-there-is-a-distinct-difference-between-suspense-and-surprise-and" target="_blank">bomb theory</a>: a bomb exploding under a table <i>surprises </i>the audience, but if the audience knows there's a bomb under the table and it <i>doesn't </i>explode, we get suspense. A surprise <i>can</i> be part of good storytelling, but it can also be a cheap trick. Suspense makes small, mundane details suddenly important or compelling.<br />
<br />
Scares work this way, too. Some movies scare us by having a monster jump out of the closet. I call these jump-scares, and they're scary for five seconds, like the bomb under the table exploding. The new <i>It</i> remakes use this again and again. A good jump-scare comes from sound design, editing, and camera work. There's a craft to it, but it's simple setup and payoff. Make people think something is coming, and then deliver it in a way that messes with their expectations somehow. I'm measuring this kind of scare in my <b>"Scary"</b> category. Does the film make me jump like a cat? The scary category also covers gross-outs, which are common in plague films. If there's blood, pus and gore making the audience feel squicky, points go here.<br />
<br />
Like the bomb under the table that <i>doesn't </i>explode, other movies scare us by having a character <i>suspect</i> there's a monster in the closet, and find they're too afraid to open the door and check. Suddenly, that closet door is scary all by itself, and every time the character has to go in that room, or a muffled sound echoes through the house, we feel anxiety. My favorite horror movies establish an ominous tone that <i>something bad is going to happen</i> and let that dread build and build. The payoff, when it comes, is more satisfying because the film set it up so carefully. Think of the films <i>Paranormal Activity, The Others,</i> or <i>The Babadook. </i>It doesn't even need to be outright horror: <i>We Need to Talk About Kevin</i> does this beautifully.<i> </i>The imagery isn't gory and the jump-scares (where they exist) are understated, or contribute to the ominous mood that builds. This kind of scare sticks with you. Unlike the chill that's gone in five seconds, these movies have you checking your locks or changing your passwords a week after the film is over. I'm measuring this in my <b>"Frightening"</b> category. I personally prefer this type of scare, though the best scary movies (<i>It Follows, The Thing, The Ring, A Quiet Place</i>) do both.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Scoring Categories</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The Failed Experiments:</b><br />
Not all these films are going to be what we conventionally call "good films," but even bad films have ways to hold one's attention. If a film was so dull, poorly made, or predictable that I didn't watch it from beginning to end, and instead skipped to the "good parts," it gets a <b>DNF (Did Not Finish). </b>I tried, but even as I pretend zombie films are relevant to a global pandemic, I have enough integrity not to review a film I haven't seen through.<br />
<br />
<b>The Categories: Each is graded out of five points.</b><br />
<b>Frightening</b> (Does it create that moody, ominous feeling of dread that builds up, and stays with you afterward?)<br />
<b>Scary </b>(Is it the kind of scary that makes you jump in your seat, or wish you'd eaten a smaller lunch? Surprises and gross-outs get points in this category.)<br />
<b>Plausible </b>(Does the plague, and people's response to it, seem realistic, as if it could possibly happen? If unrealistic, does the film follow its own rules, and unfold believably, granted the initial premise?)<br />
<b>Awesome </b>(Is it a good movie? Does it hit its marks? Are the scary parts scary, the sad parts sad, and the joyful parts joyful?)<br />
<br />
Finally, for bonus demerits/points:<br />
<b>"But wait, there's more!" stinger</b> - does the film end by hinting that the infection is on its way to a <strike>sequel</strike> new location? You know...the montage where the contaminated water ends up at a bottling factory while ominous music plays, or the one infected cat escapes the exterminators and heads toward the Lincoln Tunnel and the mainland? Yah those are cheesy, and I will be docking points for them, depending on the amount of cheesiness.<br />
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By having two categories -- half the entire scoring -- on scariness, this system will over-rate scary movies and under-rate things like dramas or love stories. We'll discuss that as we get into the reviews.<br />
<br />
It's unlikely that any film will get a 20/20 on this scale, because frightening, scary and plausible are usually a trade-off: films that make me jump like a cat usually don't also make me fear door handles, and a film that does both probably asks for a big suspension of disbelief in the plausibility category.<br />
<br />
Here, then, are links to the film reviews.<br />
<b>CoVideo Corner sidebar: Social Distancing Edition:</b><br />
<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">This post discusses a set of films about claustrophobia, isolation, boredom and helplessness: the feelings we're all feeling during our stay-at-home quarantines and self-isolation</a><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">The Shawshank Redemption (1994)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Cube (1997)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">The Shining (1980)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Room (2015)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Oldboy (2003)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Chicken Run (2000)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Groundhog Day (1993)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">The Descent (2005)</a></i><br />
<br />
<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank"><b>Go to Part 1 </b><br />Films reviewed:<br /><i>(Carriers (2009)</i></a><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Deranged (연가시) (2012)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Patient Zero (2018)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Outbreak (1995)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Bay (2012)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Perfect Sense (2011)</a></i><br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Go to Part 2</a></b><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">감기 (The Flu)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Black Death</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Pontypool</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Extinction: The GMO Chronicles</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">괴물 (The Host)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Viral (2016)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Girl With All the Gifts</a></i><br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Go to Part 3</a></b><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">And The Band Played On (1993)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">12 Monkeys (1995)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Cabin Fever (2002)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Planet of the Apes Trilogy (2011-2017)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">World War Z (2013)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Contagion (2011)</a></i><br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Go to Part 4</a></b><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Antiviral (2012)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Maggie (2015)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Pandemic (2016)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Stephen King's The Stand (1994)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">28 Days Later (2002) / 28 Weeks Later (2007) duology</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Invasion (2007)</a></i><br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">Go to Part 5</a></b></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">The Crazies (2009 and 1973)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">Day of Resurrection (Fukkatsu No Hi) (1980)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">The Andromeda Strain (1971)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">REC (2007)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">Blindness (2008)</a></i></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Roboseyo's blog feed; Creative Commons license: give me credit and
a link, share it freely, and don't try to make money from it. More here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/kr/deed.en</div>Roboseyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06308196436612993379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640421373442144160.post-633197997244512702020-03-10T11:53:00.004+09:002023-07-02T16:19:07.018+09:00CoronaVirus CoVidEo Corner: Plague Film Bonanza: Part 3<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
To Recap:<br />
<br />
Weirdo that I am, I'm commemorating the CoVid19 lockdown by watching plague movies, and because I love you, dear reader, I'm writing them up for you, and I'll end the series with a nice best-of countdown!<br />
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If you aren't up to date on the series, the rules for inclusion or need a full description of the scoring, or you want links to the other installments in the series, I'll put a recap at the bottom of this post, <a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_16.html" target="_blank">or you can read the full description, the official rules, and find links to every part of the series on the table of contents page linked here</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Scoring:</b><br />
Films that fail to hold my attention get a <b>DNF (Did Not Finish) </b>and no score (that would be unfair).<br />
<br />
Films that hold my attention are scored on four dimensions:<br />
<b>Frightening</b> (Is it the kind of scary that builds up, and stays with you afterward?) Dread & anxiety get points here.<br />
<b>Scary </b>(Is it the kind of scary that makes you jump in your seat, or wish you'd eaten a smaller lunch?) Surprises and gross-outs get points here.<br />
<b>Plausible </b>(Does the plague, and people's response to it, seem realistic, as if it could possibly happen?)<br />
<b>Awesome </b>(Is it a good movie? Does it hit its marks?)<br />
Each of these dimensions will be scored out of five.<br />
Finally, for bonus demerits/points:<br />
<b>"But wait, there's more!" stinger</b> (Does the film end by hinting that the infection is on its way to a <strike>sequel</strike> new location?) That's tacky, and I take away points depending on the amount of cheesiness.<br />
<br />
<b>Coming Up in this Review:</b><br />
<i>And The Band Played On (1993)</i><br />
<i>12 Monkeys (1995)</i><br />
<i>Cabin Fever (2002)</i><br />
<i>Planet of the Apes Trilogy (2011-2017)</i><br />
<i>World War Z (2013)</i><br />
<i>Contagion (2011)</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<b>CoVideo Corner sidebar: Social Distancing Edition:</b><br />
<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">This post discusses a set of films about claustrophobia, isolation, boredom and helplessness: the feelings we're all feeling during our stay-at-home quarantines and self-isolation.</a><br />
<br />
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Click to read the reviews!<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>And The Band Played On (1993)</b><b> </b><b>(<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106273/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>)</b></span><br />
<b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />The Skinny: </b><i>And The Band Played On: Politics, People, and the Aids Epidemic</i> is a book about the AIDS epidemic in the 80s, written by Randy Shilts, who died of the disease himself. I'm stretching the qualifying rules just a bit to include this, because it was a TV movie, not a film that had a cinematic release, but it is much better quality than some of the films I'm reviewing that <i>did </i>get a cinematic release, so we're going to go with it. I'm also putting it first in this post because it's probably the most important plague film I'm going to cover. The book and film are damning indictments of the US government's failure to respond to the AIDS epidemic in a timely and appropriate way, because at first it was perceived as only affecting the gay community, and Ronald Reagan was perfectly happy to ignore a small minority that made his voting base uncomfortable anyway. By the time the disease had spread outside of the urban gay community and the political incentives to deal with it lined up, it was far too late for most of the measures that could have contained it, and so we continue to deal with AIDS and HIV today.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Good: </b>I am making a point of including this film for this reason: it is a grim reminder of how political incentives can complicate the containment of an epidemic, something we are seeing again in 2020. Where Donald Trump is hinging his reelection chances on continued positive economic indicators, and a full disease containment protocol might lead to an economic slowdown, he has incentive to deny the disease and encourage people to keep going to work and spending money. Where admitting the US healthcare system is poorly set up to deal with a huge epidemic, he cedes ground to his political opponents who want to improve healthcare, meaning he has incentive to claim the healthcare system is good enough as it is, regardless of the facts. Where CoVid 19 is likely to hit low income, service industry workers and those with inadequate healthcare harder than anyone else, and be harder to track because of the cost of testing, we might again see the kind of denialism that allowed the disease to spread unchecked among populations without a loud political voice, before exploding into populations who do, only to discover the opportunity window for interventions that could have checked the disease's spread has already closed. As for the film itself, its cast is absolutely <i>loaded</i> - Richard Gere, Ian McKellen, Alan Alda, Matthew Modine, Phil Collins, Anjelica Huston, Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin - watching this film is a big game of "She's in it too?" The acting, therefore, is great. The film is long, but we root for the protagonists, and its production value is definitely higher than some of the zombie and b-horror films covered elsewhere in this series. The film has aged very well: hindsight about the HIV/AIDS epidemic makes this film about its early stages ever more poignant.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Bad: </b>The film is long. It's a drama, so it doesn't have the thrills and chills of some of the other films in this series. If you're looking for gross-outs rather than conversations between virologists and politicians, this isn't the film for you. But if you want to see how a disease <i>actually </i>becomes an epidemic, this film is excellent and important.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scoring:</b><br />
<b>Frightening: </b>This film is not frightening in the "It's waiting outside my door" way. Simply because the disease's first name was "Gay-related immune deficiency," it was politically radioactive (Heyy! Remember back when homophobia was mainstream? Not that long ago!) was the disease's first name.<b> </b>A politician says "I'll introduce the bill, but if all the angels came dancing down to earth like the rockettes, they couldn't get a <i>dime</i> out of this administration for anything with the name <i>gay</i> on it" Not because of the imagery, camera work, editing or sound design, but because it shows how easily political concerns, desire not to impact the economy, complacency and unconcern for politically disenfranchised groups can cause decision-makers to stand by or take half-measures when they should push the big red button. This film is pants-shitting terrifying, simply because It. Has. Happened. Already. and that is the scariest thing of all. Now that we know how the AIDS epidemic has turned out, hindsight makes it incredibly sad and frustrating to watch people make decisions that we now know were deadly mistakes, and makes it terrifying to imagine that <a href="https://youtu.be/HMdBTgC0yWw" target="_blank">people could be making such decisions right now</a>. Not for the reasons I usually award points, but 5/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scary: </b>Again, not in the "<a href="https://youtu.be/ST2H8FWDvEA" target="_blank">In the House, In A Heartbeat</a>" way, but the cringe when another politician or decision-making body votes down, or decides against a necessary action, sure is frustrating. And the idea that political complacency or economic concerns would override a proper disease response is haunting and frightening enough that I'm giving the film two extra points for being so frightening. 2/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Plausible: </b>Well, it actually happened, so, there's that. 5/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Awesome: </b>There is a dang good scene where Matthew Modine asks "how many dead hemophiliacs do you need?" (before the blood industry starts testing its blood supply). And later, when the blood bank (again) votes not to test its blood supply because of the cost, someone at the blood bank asks the powerful question, "Let me ask you this: when doctors start acting like businessmen, who can the people turn to for doctors?" The crisis unfolds in terrible slow motion. We watch funding requests declined or denied, again and again, as we follow a few people who <i>get it</i> slowly gaining access to higher and higher chambers of decision-making power to make the case that AIDS <i>is </i>a crisis and <i>needs</i> a response. It is satisfying to see those people persuaded, but agonizing when they take half-measures, or decline to act until their hand is forced. The film effectively uses montages of real news footage from the time of the outbreak. Altogether, it is a full two-and-a-half hours long, but throughout, there are well-written and acted vignettes as doctors and disease investigators visit and meet AIDS patients and their bereaved families, trying to trace the disease or confirm facts about it, which really bring home the human impact of this disease. Some of the other plague films don't do a good job of putting a human face on the sickness: it's all about oozing blisters and gross excretions, or scientists in labs and mobs raiding grocery stores, but this film makes <i>damn </i>sure we see the impact AIDS had on its victims and their families. Ian McKellen is especially good, and Alan Alda's Dr. Gallo is a pretty good villain. -1 point for length 4/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>But Wait, There's More! Stinger?</b> The film ends with Rock Hudson telling the media he has AIDS, which brought concern about the disease into the mainstream in a way that could no longer be denied. The closing credits are a montage of celebrities who died of AIDS, or who were part of educating the public about AIDS, and helping AIDS victims, over an Elton John song written from the perspective of a father whose son died of AIDS. It's pretty damn heartbreaking. Considering that this film covers real life events and the AIDS epidemic continued for years after the end of the film, yes, there <i>was</i> more, but this is not a cheesy "look out for the sequel" kind of story, so no demerits.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Verdict: </b>As I write this, Coronavirus Disease 19 is making inroads in the USA, and I am communicating with one of my dear friends from university, who lives in Portland, and who is close enough to the margins that a work disruption or a hospital stay could be really really bad news for her family. The line from the film sticking with me is this one: "Let me ask you this: when doctors start acting like businessmen, who can the people turn to for doctors?" As Coronavirus is making inroads in the USA, <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/27/1922487/-America-is-about-to-get-a-godawful-lesson-in-why-health-care-should-never-be-a-for-profit-business?fbclid=IwAR0T17Y5Pu1VN6z6JQ-oP-qtfaVO6ZKupgJjUkAPWoZ9_9TlDrRTZoBuA9k" target="_blank">I worry that a for-profit healthcare system simply isn't built to deal with a crisis like CoVid19</a>, and this film really brings home how easily political incentives or complacency can create conditions where an outbreak becomes orders of magnitude worse than it needed to be. The film is vital for that, and anyone whose government is taking half-measures should see this film and make their local representatives see it, too.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Total Score: </b>17/20 As with <i>Perfect Sense</i> and <i>The Host</i>, the scoring system I'm using doesn't do a good job of reflecting this film's strengths, and why/how it's important. This film isn't scary or gross in the way most plague films are, but it is a gripping drama that puts a human face on the AIDS crisis of the 80s, and watching the inaction and complacency of policy makers and healthcare decision-makers is only more infuriating in hindsight. It is the most important film in this series, bar none.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>12 Monkeys (1995)</b><b> </b><b>(<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114746/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>)</b></span><br />
<b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />The Skinny: </b>Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt give two of the weirdest performances of their careers in this batshit whackadoodle Terry Gilliam film, where Bruce Willis is a time traveler from a post-apocalyptic future, trying to prevent the release of a plague that kills 90% of the planet. The plot is intricate, looping back on itself and making the audience feel as confused and lost as Bruce Willis's character, Cole, as he discovers the authorities sending him back in time might not have been totally honest with him. Once all is revealed, the storylines converge in a perfect, bleak bow, wrapping up the story as airtight as a hazard suit.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Good:</b> 1990s Bruce Willis was incredibly watchable, and he is perfect in this film playing a traumatized tough guy trying to puzzle out a problem when the stakes could not be higher. Brad Pitt plays against Willis's straight man with a twitchy, erratic, magnetic performance as a possibly brain-addled, possibly correct conspiracy theorist trying to help Cole in a case of the deluded leading the confused. This film is dense and bears multiple watchings. It also includes one of the best uses of a Tom Waits song in a film ever.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Bad:</b> The film probably requires multiple watchings, and the first time through, you'll feel like you've been thrown in a pool, blindfolded. Just like the protagonist Cole.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scoring:</b><br />
<b>Frightening: </b>Thanks to time travel, this plot takes place before and after the devastating plague but not during, so while we don't see the plague unfold, the date it arrives approaches, and its perhaps-inevitability looms over the action and drives the main character. That we see the hellscape future where it has wreaked its devastation increases the stakes for Cole's effort to prevent it and explains his desperate urgency, and the sinking feeling as we start to worry he won't be able to lingers. This film is plague-adjacent rather than a direct plague film, but it sticks with you. Or at least it stuck with me. The film is also gritty and grim, in both the 1990s, where much of the action happens in slums and squalid mental hospitals and the like, and in the future, where the effects of the plague show a world where people have been forced to live underground (in dirty steampunk dwellings) to survive. The idea that this is our future <i>is</i> frightening. 4/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scary: </b>There aren't many jump-scares or real stomach-churning gross-outs though what there is, is pretty graphic - when a character suspects the creepy future government is tracking him through a tooth implant, he pulls out his own teeth. Cole is also a violent man, ready to punch his way out of a bad situation, and the threat both of his violence, and violence from authorities trying to restrain him brutally, lead to action sequences that emphasize the brutality, making it more wince-worthy than thrilling. 2/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Plausible:</b> This film's premise requires a pretty big suspension of disbelief, though that is mitigated by seeing things from the perspective of Cole, whose mental state makes him a very unreliable narrator. The action, the settings and the characters are heightened to the point of stylized zaniness, as most Terry Gilliam films are. However, as with Gilliam's other films, the world is very fully realized and rich in detail, too, and Bruce Willis's performance somehow sells his weird character's weird behaviors as believable choices by a confused man trying to understand and accomplish an unclear mission with dizzyingly high stakes. He pauses in his mission from time to time to take immense joy in things like car radio music or sunshine or water-filled ditches, making you believe he's spent much of his life underground, in some vivid moments that add humanness to the character and the story. The way the plague ends up being released is plausible enough. The idea of a future government that is invasive, manipulative, oppressive, and more interested in your loyalty and demonstrating their power over you, than in your achievement of the assignments they give you is, unfortunately, disturbingly believable in 2019. 3/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Awesome:</b> Again, the plot is intricate and ties together in a beautifully tight bow. The performances, visuals, and design create a claustrophobic, confusing, intriguing world that drips out just enough information to keep viewers interested, right until the end, when the last screw turns, everything clicks into place, and all questions are answered, only to have the satisfaction of those answers snatched away. It is one of the films I saw in the 90s that has stuck with me the most vividly all the way until now. 5/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>But Wait, There's More! Stinger? </b>Given that this is a time travel film, and we already know the future, this hardly applies, but the plague plays into the film's ending in a very important way.<br />
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<b>Verdict: </b>The plague is more of the backdrop than the point of the film, but it's carefully constructed and expertly calibrated puzzle-box of a time travel film that keeps you guessing, and yet somehow all ties together at the end.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Total Score: 14/20</b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Cabin Fever (2002) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303816/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>)</span></b><br />
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<b>The Skinny: </b>The directorial debut of Eli Roth, better known for gory stuff like the body horror classic <i>Hostel</i>. It's the classic premise. Some horny teenagers go to a cabin in the woods. Once there, instead of boozin and sexin, they end up dyin. A hobo with a disease appears at their cabin, covered in open, bleeding sores, and they chase him away. Later they catch the same disease one by one, while extraneous characters from the nearby countryside wander through the frame for some reason.<br />
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<b>The Good: </b>There is some nice gore in this, if you're into the body horror. Boils and blood blisters and oozing fluids. The good looking people are indeed good looking, so if eye candy and some classic horror movie nudity (boobs and heterosexual doinking) is what you're here for, you will get it.<br />
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<b>The Bad:</b> This film is bad. Not a single character is likable, and not a single one gives a clear sense of who they are, and why they make the decisions they do. Usually you can at least tell who the jock is, and who the nerd is, and stuff. Even the locals who live around the cabin, when approached, are weird (and not scary movie weird, just off-putting and badly acted) and do or say things that make no sense and have no motivation, other than to be sure every scene ends with shouting or hitting something. Oh, and because this movie was made in 2002, and that was a thing people did back then, there's a character who expresses her dislike for things by saying "That's so gay." That and the N-word joke that turns out to be the setup for <i>another </i>N-word joke... yah. That happens too.<i> </i><br />
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<b>Scoring:</b><br />
<b>Frightening: </b>They try, but fail to sell it. 1/5<br />
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<b>Scary: </b>They do that cliched thing where a couple is getting into some intimate touching, and then someone takes their hand away and it's covered in blood. Except it's not just gross because blood: it's also gross because she's sleeping when he gropes her. And he's supposed to be the likable one, I think. There is some good gross-out blood wound kind of stuff, if bloody gore is all you're looking for, but there are better places to get your gore. 0/5<br />
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<b>Plausible: </b>Why would a woman with a festering sore disease shave her legs? What would that person say that thing to a person acting like that? (repeat 20x) Why would...why... why... why everything, people. Why everything? What is life for? Not many films are bad enough to give me existential angst about lost hours of my life. 0/5<br />
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<b>Awesome: </b>This film escaped a DNF because <i>so much was happening all the time</i> so it certainly didn't bore me. But everything that was happening was bad. Perhaps this is the kind of film that would be really enjoyable to watch with...um... enhancement. Or... with a really witty friend who also likes bad scary movies, with whom you can do the MST3K treatment and just bark wisecracks at the screen all movie long. That would be fun, but the points would go to my witty friend, not the movie. 1/5 and only so that the final score isn't negative.<br />
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<b>But Wait, There's More! Stinger? </b>There sure is. A really obvious, prolonged one that tops itself, and tops itself again in cheesy obviousness. -2 points.<br />
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<b>Verdict: </b>Sometimes a film is so bad it's good. And sometimes... I'll let my favorite line from <i>Ghost World </i>fill you in.<br />
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<b>Total Score: </b>So bad it goes past good and back to bad again. 0/20<br />
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<b>Cabin Fever 2016 - The Remake: DNF): </b>Who the f*#& would watch Cabin Fever 2002 and think "Lawd the world needs <i>more</i> of this"?<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Planet of the Apes Trilogy (Rise of the Planet of the Apes - 2011 (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1318514/?ref_=tt_sims_tt" target="_blank">IMDB</a>); Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - 2014 (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2103281/?ref_=tt_sims_tt" target="_blank">IMDB</a>); War for the Planet of the Apes - 2017 (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3450958/" target="_blank">IMDB</a>))</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Skinny:</b> While superheroes hog the spotlight, we've all been sleeping on the <i>Planet Of The Apes</i> reboot trilogy, which has quietly used impressive visuals not as an end to themselves, but as supporting elements for well-crafted stories with clear characters, meaningful conflicts, with some moments of surprising emotional complexity. This is as good as Hollywood franchise storytelling gets. The plague element is not the focal point of this story: the conflict between humans and apes is, but two plagues, the first one (shown at the end of the first and the beginning of the second film) wiping out a majority of the human species and the second one (with its first outbreak shown in the third film) wiping out humans' ability to speak and perhaps also their capability for higher order thought, are inflection points giving apes an absolute survival advantage over humans. I'm going to treat the entire trilogy in one write-up here, though these films do suffer a little of the usual diminishing returns of sequel-itis, they jump in time, and tell different stories. <i>Planet Of The Apes </i>is one of those stories where we already know the ending, because we've seen (or at least know the premise of) the 1968 original, so like in the <i>Breaking Bad</i> prequel <i>Better Call Saul</i>, the pleasure of the story is not so much in twists and surprises, but in the process of seeing characters we know and like getting from <i>here </i>to <i>there.</i><br />
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<b>The Good: </b>In <i>The Girl With All the Gifts,</i> I was amazed that we were rooting for a zombie that looks like a ten-year-old girl. Now we're rooting for a highly intelligent ape who just wants a safe place for him and his to live unmolested. These films have impressive visuals, remarkable motion capture acting on the part of the actors portraying the apes, but most impressively, they never thought that would be enough, and never let effects stand in place of good storytelling. Rather, each film is a coherent story, with consistency and clear motivations for characters both human and ape. Caesar is a really excellent character in his own right, sympathetic but also well-justified in his motivations: humans have <i>not</i> been good to apes, and don't really deserve their mercy, though by the third film we've seen that apes are just as capable of duplicity, cruelty and ugliness as humans.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Bad: </b>It's hard to pick problems that are big enough to impact the storytelling in one of these films, much less across three films, unless viewers simply are not on board for the entire premise of <i>The Planet Of The Apes</i> franchise in the first place. So many films are just bad, lazy or sloppy, that simply by avoiding common mistakes, these films put themselves among the best-told stories of their years (especially the first two). The slavery and concentration camp parallels in the third film are a little on-the-nose, and yeah, it's a little depressing to see that ape nature turns out to be just as crappy as human nature, in what humans and apes are willing to do to each other when they have power. Even though they're English language, a lot of the apes' communication is through grunts, hoots and moans, even after they become intelligent, so I find these films much easier to watch with subtitles on.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scoring:</b><br />
<b>Frightening: </b>It's fitting that the plague is created by a human: as a moral of the story, it seems spot-on to portray humans as careening toward their own self-destruction, as we appear to be doing exactly that. The initial virus is described across the closing credits of the first film and the opening credits of the second, and in the third, the people attempting to organize humanity's last stand are infected with a second virus (or a new phase of the first?) which robs them of intelligence and speech. <i> </i>That stick-in-your-head dread can't really take over, because we already <i>kind of</i> know the ending. Because the film is unwilling to paint either apes or humans as evil monsters, they veer away from the kind of dread an implacable enemy brings, and because it's more accurate to say the plague is part of the film's setting than its main plot mover, the film doesn't give it enough attention for it to drive our emotional response to the story. 1/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scary: </b>Again, these are stories about friendships, communities, protecting one's community and defending one's values, not stories about plagues - they're just the setting - so the story focuses on life changes, threats, and moral choices rather than festering boils, victims vomiting blood, or contaminants poisoning water supplies. Even the plagues we see are mostly bloodless, and almost all of the plague-related suffering happens off screen. Basically, these films aren't<i> trying</i> to scare us. 1/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Plausible: </b>The premise that a hotshot scientist would unintentionally create a plague that overwhelmed the human immune system is not nearly far-fetched enough. Plaguewise, that's the scariest thing about the film trilogy, and the most plausible, too. Once you accept the premise that a plague has wiped out humans and made apes super-intelligent, the way the action plays out makes logical as well as emotional sense for the characters we care about. 4/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Awesome: </b>These films are awesome. The pacing is a little slow at times, but the films' success at conveying complex emotions through motion capture effects continues to astound throughout the trilogy. The human characters are played by a series of excellent recognizable-but-not-superstar character actors you've seen in other Hollywood films, holding up their end capably, and the weakest of the three (the third) features a lights-out villain performance from the still-underrated Woody Harrelson (but also some gratuitous cute from Hollywood's cheapest trick: a vulnerable little blue-eyed white girl) while the second features all-time bad-guy-actor Gary Oldman. The three films explore big questions about leadership, community, war and peace, dignity and determination. 4/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>But Wait, There's More! Stinger? </b>The first one tells the story of the plague in the ending credits, and retells it in the beginning credits of the second. A second disease starts to move during the third film. However, I'll let it slide because it's part of the premise of the entire Planet of the Apes backstory, and we can't retcon Charleton Heston's awesome realization at the end of the original 1968 <i>Planet of the Apes</i> film now, can we? Everyone knows how it ends anyway, so no deductions.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Verdict: </b>The third film gets a little cloying in its themes, and none of the films are <i>really</i> about plagues, but they're worth seeing, especially the first, <i>Rise of the Planet of the Apes</i>, which as close to a perfect movie as we can probably expect to come out of a well-known IP.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Total Score: 10/20 </b>Again: this is 10/20 <i>as a plague film. </i>As straight-up films, their score would be much higher (Rise: somewhere around 18/20, Dawn: maybe 16, and War, perhaps 14 - sequelitis is another plague spreading diminishing returns around Hollywood), but it doesn't have the scares, gross-outs, horror or imagery I'm looking for when I look for popcorn plague films.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">World War Z (2013) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816711/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>)</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Skinny: </b>Speaking of popcorn plague films... <br />
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A zombie virus is sweeping the planet. Brad Pitt is a UN investigator whose particular set of skills is real handy when things go south. He is assigned to brave the sprinting zombies that somehow swarm like ants, flow like rivers, and go really <i>really </i>fast, and get to the bottom of the outbreak. The film bears almost no resemblance to the excellent book of the same name, but and the zombie genre fits the Hollywood summer blockbuster template like crocs at a fashion show, but the whole shambolic mess somehow works better than it should have. I won't say it's <i>good</i> per se, but it's less bad than I'd have expected from a film both so far removed from its source material, and aiming to be a popcorn movie. As an book adaptation, it's awful, wandering far from the source; as a zombie film, it's a little above average, with one big problem; approaching it as a plague film probably casts it in its best light possible, as it works better as a plague film than as anything else (except, perhaps as a star vehicle for Brad Pitt.)<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Good: </b>Gerry Lane, Brad Pitt's character, is on a mission that brings him to different parts of the world. In the book, he does this long after the zombie war has been won by humans to compile a UN report and an oral history of the zombie war. In the film, he does it during the initial breakout, and this investigation works as a pretense to bring him around the world and see different aspects of zombie origins and behaviors. This is just enough of a frame to hang a story on, and Brad Pitt is always watchable. I tracked the film's production troubles on movie news websites, and this film barely made it to cinemas, so I expected it to be a huge pile of crap. Instead, after they re-shot the entire ending... it worked (and the original ending sounded like crap)! Other good points: some of the zombies were quite terrifying, especially the tooth-rattling one and the one trapped in the medical lab, and the zombie mayhem at the beginning is some of the best zombie mayhem I've seen, probably second only to the Zack Snyder Dawn of the Dead.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Bad: </b>In order to resolve the plot in a Hollywood popcorn movie sort of way, they had to change the standard rules for zombies. This diminishes it as a zombie film, and some of the film's best moments, effects and visuals (cool as they are) create plausibility or fridge logic issues for the film as a whole. Having read the book, it's disappointing that the film wandered so far from the source -- I only spotted two or three spots where elements from the original book were preserved in the screenplay -- but that wouldn't matter to non-readers. I'm also not a fan of sprinting zombies... but again, we're reviewing this as a plague film, not a zombie film.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scoring:</b><br />
<b>Frightening: </b>Basically, the reason I don't like sprinting zombies is because it almost always cashes in its 'frightening' points for 'scary' points. Jump-scares are flashy and make theatergoers shout and grasp their date's hand, but they make a film less rewatchable when you know which closets contain boogeymen and which closets don't. That grim, creepy horror movie tone probably didn't fit a Hollywood summer popcorn movie (<i>Zombieland</i> didn't have it either), which might have been why they didn't go that way, but any zombie film is diminished if they flinch away from the inherent creepiness of plague or zombie films. The film's final act finds a good way to build up the tension with a welcome stealth mission, but it's too little, too late after the action-moviefication of the rest of the film. 1/5<br />
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<b>Scary: </b>Because it wanted that lucrative PG-13 rating, the film also veered away from the kind of blood and gore that zombie films usually have. The violence was startlingly bloodless, given that it's a <i>zombie</i> film, even when Gerry Lane cuts off the arm of a marine whose wrist has been bitten. There are a few jump moments, but the chills particular to a zombie (or plague) movie are replaced with the kinds of thrills you might get from any war film or a particularly gun-heavy spy film. 2/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Plausible: </b>Nope. That zombies would breach that wall in that way, that Brad Pitt's plane would crash so close to a W.H.O. lab, that the zombies would have the particular weakness Brad Pitt discovers, and that a sprinting zombie would somehow be perceptive enough to notice such a thing at top speed is unbelievable, even for a film where we're allowing that sprinting cannibal monsters exist who can turn you into one of them in twelve seconds with a bite. As I said earlier: if you have to make up new rules to beat your monster, your resolution might be a cop-out... it makes it more interesting as a plague film, but worse as a zombie film, which is what <i>World War Z</i> wants to be. The way zombie crowds move looks cool, but it also gets sillier the more you think about it. Everything about the second airplane scene is ridiculous. This film tries to be fun enough that you don't notice any of these problems, and nearly manages, but doesn't. 1/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Awesome: </b>As I said, the movie works better than it seems like it should, and plotwise, it's basically a string of vignettes in unrelated locations -- which works much better in the book, where each location has a different narrator -- than it does in the film, where one protagonist has to show up in South Korea, Jerusalem, and Wales in the middle of the intense chaos of a zombie outbreak. There's some good work in small parts from a lot of character actors throughout the film. It's fun, but in a good bad movie way, not a good way. 3/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>But Wait, There's More! Stinger? </b>Quite the opposite.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Verdict: </b>More fun than it should have been, and better as a plague film than a zombie film, if you wanted proof Brad Pitt could make almost anything watchable, this is a good case for his place in the "rescuing crap movies from the crappy crapper" hall of fame.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Total Score: 7/20</b><br />
<b><br /></b>This mini-review was brought to you by Pepsi.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Contagion (2011) (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598778/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">IMDB Page</a>)</span></b><br />
<b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />The Skinny: </b>Stephen Soderbergh directed this 2011 film, partly based on the 2009 H1N1 breakout, and it traces a pathogen that makes first human contact and spreads around the world, until eventually a vaccination is found. It is an omnibus film (made back before the omnibus film trend curdled and started to be terrible), following a pretty big ensemble cast of different people from varying fields, including scientists, Center For Disease Control and World Health Organization employees, opportunistic hucksters, and plain old ordinary civilians as they respond to the outbreak.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Good: </b>This film is really effective. The acting and the cast is top-notch, and it makes really effective use of montages, brief scenes between characters in different positions, and time jumps to fill in information gaps and fully flesh out what a plague is, how authorities and people respond to it, and what impact it might have on the world. We see everything from irritated phone calls between a CDC official and his wife once he realizes how bad things are, but that news isn't public yet, to an opportunistic blogger using people's fear to sell fake medicines, to a dad who realizes his wife's been cheating on him, because her infection broke out in Chicago, where her ex lives. The pacing is impeccable, and the film has been praised by scientists for its accuracy. I also like that the vector of transmission here isn't a storage container full of illegal immigrants (boo racism) or evil environmentalist polluters (heavy handed), but a privileged, pretty white lady who most of us would invite inside if she knocked on our door asking for help.<br />
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The more I watch, the more I see that almost all horror films, if you strip away the tropes and the artifice, are what passes for morality plays. Who gets rewarded (the virtuous, virginal final girl), who gets punished (the slut, the jock and the bully) usually boil down to the same moralizing tropes that have been in stories since the bible and Greek myths. Those who are punished have sinned, and the only hard part is sometimes figuring out what their sin was. If you go through the films in this blog series, many of the outbreaks are traceable to some original sin by a character, organization or government. I was going to say I like that this disease is random: it comes because it comes, and that's it. But... the montage at the end shows the virus's origin, and it's the bulldozer cutting down rainforest that disturbs the bat which originated the virus. That bulldozer belonged to patient zero's employer, so... neocolonialism, environmentally exploitative capitalism, deforestation and (after the bat passes its virus to a pig in a pork farm) factory farming... is the real villain here. Once the virus is unleashed, though, there's no moral code that unlocks who is saved and who is punished, which, again, is true to life. Some scumbags survive, and some saints die. There isn't a virginal final girl who survives the killer here, which is appropriate. One of the most annoying things about liking horror films is the cloying moralizing that goes into a lot of them, and seeing a film that <i>doesn't</i> go into that is refreshing.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Bad: </b>I have no idea how this film was successful during its theatrical run, as sitting in a theater with a few hundred strangers seeing all the ways they could bring about my untimely death sounds like the <i>opposite</i> of a good time. It didn't go as far as <i>Outbreak, </i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKaf7wGcRyc" target="_blank">setting the main point of transmission in a movie theater, but still.</a> I am a little surprised, for a film with such a sweeping scope of a disease, didn't spend any time at all on the kind of impact a disease would have on the world's economy, or what it would look like in an overwhelmed hospital.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scoring:</b><br />
<b>Frightening: </b>This film has stayed in my head longer, and better, than almost any of the other plague films, because as you watch it, you get the convincing feeling that "this is how it would actually go" and you watch failsafes and precautions fail, you watch people take a trip they shouldn't, brace for loss, dread what that cough might mean, and feel just as helpless as the characters do when there just isn't a treatment yet. I almost gave this 4/5 simply because it was fiction, but as the CoVid 19 virus spreads, this shit is playing out in real time, so I'm bumping it up to 5/5.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Scary: </b>It's not scary in the zombies-clawing-at-the-door way, but there's a slight pause when someone touches an object and infects it, and for the rest of the scene you're watching for someone else to touch it, or when someone touches their face, or a door handle, or a dish, so that by halfway through the film, your alerts go on every time someone touches an object, or their face, and you're trying to spot the next moment of transmission, and rooting for the characters you like <i>not </i>to grab that city bus pole. It's not a jump out of your chair film, but it is very effective at making every mundane object a threat. 4/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Plausible: </b><i>Contagion </i>is far and away the most plausible plague film I've watched. The set of symptoms, the reactions of the characters, the procedures of the Center For Disease Control, the efforts to communicate between government, scientists, and population: the film is a gripping story, but the scenes and conversations manage to be incredibly educational about what an epidemic is, how it spreads, what civilians (both good and bad) do in response, how rumors and pseudoscience spread, and what the authorities can do about all these things. By following characters through the entire cycle of the epidemic, we get to see every step of the process. 5/5 only because I can't give more. This is to plague films what <i>The Martian</i> is to space movies and <i>My Cousin Vinny </i>to courtroom films.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Awesome: </b>This film is well-edited, the music is great, and it makes really excellent use of montages to convey a <i>lot</i> of information in a concise way, without ever venturing into cheesy territory. It's directed by Stephen Soderbergh, a real master of the filmmaking craft, and the cast is absolutely loaded with excellent actors doing good work. The scary parts <i>are</i> scary, but the ending, when they've beaten the plague, and everyone, both good and shitty, faces the due consequences of their actions during the outbreak, is a nice catharsis, too. 5/5<br />
<b><br /></b><b>But Wait, There's More! Stinger? </b>None. In fact, <i>Contagion</i> gets a bonus point for its ending: first we see scientists put a sample of the virus in deep storage, then we see a montage of how the virus spread to humans in the first place. It is chilling in its banality, but finishes the picture with a nice "Aha!" +1 point.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Verdict: </b>The sheer plausibility and accuracy of this film makes it one of the two <i>actual </i>scariest of them all, because it <i>could happen like this</i>. Add to that an excellent production, cast, and direction, and it sets the gold standard for plague films. This is the best-made plague film, in terms of craft. <i>And The Band Played On</i> is the most important one, because of its relevance. If you only watch one plague film, flip a coin between these two.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Total Score: 20/20 </b>Slow clap.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Series Recap:</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b><b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_16.html" target="_blank">Back to the Table of Contents, where I explain all this in more detail.</a></b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>Qualifying:</b><br />
It has to be a film. There might be some great plague television out there, but I have a kid: binge watching six TV series that are too scary to share with my kid this week is off the table. I think I'm going to add right now that it has to be a narrative film, not a documentary.<br />
<br />
The film has to be about a plague or viral infection. That is, the film has to put significant attention on what the infectious agent is, how it spreads or works, and what can be done <i>about the infection</i>. If the response is "we need to hide from/kill all the zombies" it's not <i>really</i> a plague film: it's a zombie film. If the response is "we can beat this if we discover and exploit a weakness in how the virus spreads" then it's a plague film. (So, <i>World War Z</i>:<i> </i>yes; <i>Dawn of the Dead</i>:<i> </i>no.) There's a little wiggle room here, and I'll be making some calls. Deal with it.<br />
<br />
<b>Scoring:</b><br />
Films that fail to hold my attention get a <b>DNF (Did Not Finish)</b><br />
<br />
Films that hold my attention are scored on four dimensions:<br />
<b>Frightening</b> (is it the kind of scary that's moody, builds up, and stays with you afterward?)<br />
<b>Scary </b>(is it the kind of scary that makes you jump in your seat, or wish you'd eaten a smaller lunch? Surprises and gross-outs get points in this category.) <a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_16.html" target="_blank">More on my theory of movie scares in the table of contents.</a><br />
<b>Plausible </b>(does the plague, and people's response to it, seem realistic, as if it could possibly happen?)<br />
<b>Awesome </b>(is it a good movie? Does it hit its marks?)<br />
Each of these dimensions will be scored out of five.<br />
Finally, for bonus demerits/points:<br />
<b>"But wait, there's more!" stinger</b> - does the film end by hinting that the infection is on its way to a <strike>sequel</strike> new location? You know...the montage where the contaminated water ends up at a bottling factory while ominous music plays? Yah those are cheesy, and I will be docking points for them, depending on the amount of cheesiness.<br />
<br />
It's unlikely that any film will get a 20/20 on this scale, because frightening, scary and plausible are usually a trade-off: films that make me jump like a cat usually don't also make me fear door handles, and a film that does both probably asks for a big suspension of disbelief in the plausibility category.<br />
<br /><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Back to Part 1</a></b></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">(Carriers (2009)</a></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Deranged (연가시) (2012)</a></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Patient Zero (2018)</a></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Outbreak (1995)</a></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Bay (2012)</a></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-special-covideo-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Perfect Sense (2011)</a></div>
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<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank"><b>Back to Part 2</b></a><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">감기 (The Flu)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Black Death</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Pontypool</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Extinction: The GMO Chronicles</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">괴물 (The Host)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Viral (2016)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/corona-virus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Girl With All the Gifts</a></i><br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">This was Part 3</a></b><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">And The Band Played On (1993)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">12 Monkeys (1995)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Cabin Fever (2002)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Planet of the Apes Trilogy (2011-2017)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">World War Z (2013)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Contagion (2011)</a></i><br />
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<b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Coming up in Part 4:</a></b><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Antiviral (2012)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Maggie (2015)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Pandemic (2016)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">Stephen King's The Stand (1994)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">28 Days Later (2002) / 28 Weeks Later (2007) duology</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film.html" target="_blank">The Invasion (2007)</a></i><br /><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><br /><b><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">Go to Part 5</a></b></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">The Crazies (2009 and 1973)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">Day of Resurrection (Fukkatsu No Hi) (1980)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">The Andromeda Strain (1971)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">REC (2007)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-covideo-corner-plague-film_15.html" target="_blank">Blindness (2008)</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><br />
<b>CoVideo Corner sidebar: Social Distancing Edition:</b><br />
<a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">This post discusses a set of films about claustrophobia, isolation, boredom and helplessness: the feelings we're all feeling during our stay-at-home quarantines and self-isolation</a><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">The Shawshank Redemption (1994)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Cube (1997)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">The Shining (1980)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Room (2015)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Oldboy (2003)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Chicken Run (2000)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">Groundhog Day (1993)</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covideo-bonanza-side-quest.html" target="_blank">The Descent (2005)</a></i><br />
<br /></div>
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