film – Page 4 – Liatach.net

Reviews & Catchup

Took the day off yesterday to play, eat and relax with family. Watched a film, ate chocolate, continued our culinary adventures following this cookbook.

Yesterday it was north indian eggs at lunch and amazing meatloaf for dinner.

No art whatsoever.

This evening I have a few hours to devote to the castle terrain card which is presenting a not insignificant challenge.

Firewatch

N and I clocked this game over two nights.

It is a rather enjoyable game certainly worth devoting an evening or two to. At times quite suspenseful the plot is driven by an engaging dialog based mode of story exposition. Very much like an interactive audiobook coupled with exploring an altogether very pretty digital natural environment. Good and unusual first person adventure games seem to be becoming a bit of a thing and I’m glad of it.

Both N and I were left guessing how things would wrap up until the end. Both of us feel that despite the large variety of responses available at certain points, the story almost certainly remains the same no matter how you play it and replay value for anything other than environment exploration and photography is limited. I have already praised the aesthetics in this game but I will say that the lack of tonal variation in the caves and some forest areas subtracts for the beauty and realism. As does the overuse of repeated terrain elements used to signify scrambles, absails, ledges and balance points. In fairness this is an indie game and the achievement with a small team is pretty extraordinary.

Pacing is the one other area I felt could have worked on. Throughout the game we were constantly driven from place to place. Occasionally even forced in to fast travel to achieve this. At times this feels right, there are things to do, the pressure is on. However the nature of the job our avatar has taken on is deeply quiet and contemplative and we are never really given a taste of that. At no time are we given a chance to just sit in the tower and be lookout, even though it would chafe to be so ‘bored’ in a game it seems a missed opportunity. The fact that we never get to use the cool fire pinpointing map setup in the centre of our tower is another missed opportunity.

There is a camera in game, it has limited shots and when introduced it is kind of implied that you may want to save them for important evidence. This is not the case you are really supposed to be snap happy and get your photos printed on whim at the end. My pics are not really worth using so I’ve borrowed another’s.

Image by Steam user ‘Your Favorite Pussy’ C/o this article

Ant Man

We watched Ant Man last night which although silly, predictable, Marvel superhero pulp was very entertaining.
I was particularly enamoured of the social gossip story telling method in which the tale as related by one actor has who speaks all parts which the actors mime along to. It is used twice to great effect in the film. They play a bit fast and loose with scale in order keep things visible and they mix well know misconceptions of atomic structure in with some very clever visuals when Ant Man inevitably is forced to go subatomic.

It fails Bechdel though not completely

I’m pleased it included bullet ants and I think this film probably explains why so many people have now heard of the Schmidt sting pain index.

Drawing, Docos and Lavish Links

by Kimliatach

Painting all day. N took the boys to the farm for the day so I sweated it out at home painting digitally, listening and peripherally watching docos. Despite hours of attention the bloody village card is still not done. It’s getting there but my goodness it has been time consuming. Some minor and some significant changes still to go. Had took take a break as my wrist got sore.

Edit: Finished the bugger.

I watched or rather mostly listened to the following today:

Deep Web The Silk Road story which has a particular focus on the case against the alleged Dread Pirate Roberts user/admin Ross Ulbricht who has been jailed for life in a trial that involved some significant miscarriages of justice in the name of making a statement with his sentencing. Interesting for a variety of reasons, particularly so for the old law enforcement officers acknowledgements that the online trade has a profound effect in the reduction of violence in the drug trade. Which as the formost stated aim of The Silk Road counts as a success for the market. Also like so many other examples of distributed access as quickly as one is shut down others spring open. It seems that finally the writing’s on the wall for the ‘drug war’. Thanks largely to capitalism and the internet.

The Island President Follows the interesting figure Mohamed Nasheed during his brief time as president of the Maldives as he attempts to convince national leaders from around the world to act decisively on global warming prior to and during the Copenhagen summit. A somewhat depressing film particularly so for the endnotes which told how the Maldives have since slid back under military rule.

Unhung Hero follows Patrick Moote as he recovers from a humiliating breakup in which his penis size is implicated by travelling the world exploring the weird and wonderful field of penis enlargement treatments, almost all of which are decidedly dodgy scams. Occasionally quite touching, mostly annoyingly American, self indulgent and trite.

Playing link aggregate with a few other interesting things from the feed today:

Cool Paper wigs

The tragic glory possible with a D20

New Potter!

Very much enjoying Rubicon still. This vid is quite timely really, though it shows Roma a few centuries after what I’m listening to. I do wish I had read it before my last trip to Rome.

Three sided solid of constant width

Another great .Gif site this time with good mathematical explanations.

Pretty fish handbags

Teacher friends who have an actual class of their own this year should totally sign up for this.

Extraordinary Dune poster by Caper Konefal

#Feeling the Bern

Is it the music, the pacing, the intonation or the combination? I don’t know. Got frisson tho.

Delightfully random finish

Tuesday 10th

by Kimliatach

Progress shot from the fully digital workflow I have turned to for the first village card.

A day with the boys. Playing with clay and play doh, Lego and drawing and this afternoon when N got home swimming at the pool.

Started listening to ‘Rubicon’ by Tom Holland. A couple of hours in and enjoying it so far.

I spent the evening drawing and singing along to Irish heartbeat out of tune in a response to a nostalgic rush brought on by a chance link that led me to this:

I’m a day late sharing this one. First Dog was on point yesterday.

A good friend who lost a father today shared this link yesterday, I’ve sent my condolences but I’m saying it again here all the same. Love and support from rural NSW mate. I’m thinking I need to make a contribution, I never got around to doing one for the first project and let’s be honest, Empire is the better film.

Tangerine, Danny Wallace and First Aid

by Kimliatach

Dubbo, a microcosm of an Australian city. With many concentrated collections of poor life choices on display.

On the way to Dubbo we completed the second Danny Wallace book we have listened to together in recent months and just as with the first it had us repeatedly in stitches. He first came to my attention on this gem (It’s really, really good), Also this splendid thing. The first book we listened to was ‘What not to do and how to do it’ (Yes, we are aware that we have skipped one). On Monday we finished ‘Yes Man’ Both audiobooks are made indescribably better by Danny’s reading of them.

I’ve seen a physio and I now have excruciating exercises to perform every hour indefinitely or at least until my next appointment in March.

Physio finger stretches

A video posted by @liatach on Feb 3, 2016 at 2:35am PST

N and I had good intentions of spending the evening out but in truth by the time we had my appointment and the first rounds of shopping done and checked into our hotel we decided to stay in and canoodle.

We watched “Tangerine” on SBS2. A curious film in which despite the breakneck pace little happens. It feels like a reasonably accurate portrayal of the lifestyle and relationships of the people represented. It is not a pleasant existence and despite billing itself as a comedy it is, with a few dark exceptions, not very funny. I enjoyed the film as the experience of a life that I would otherwise never see. I am still in vaguely disquieted by the shallow rudeness and careless disregard for each other the characters display.

I recognised but couldn’t place this actor James Ransone turns out I’ve seen him in quite a few things, perhaps most interestingly as a character in ‘The Wire’ in which he bears the same name and has a very similar personality.

Kiss Me! I have recertification for first aid, CPR, anaphylaxis and asthma.

A photo posted by @liatach on Feb 3, 2016 at 1:58am PST

Yesterday I sat through and actively participated in a very long 7 hours of first aid refresher training. It was not the worst such course I have done, it was far from the most interesting and memorable though. One of those spend all day practising to do a 40 question multiple choice on which I got 100% in a fraction of the allotted time kind of activities.

We slept at the farm when we eventually arrived there at nearly nine last night.

Today I’ve begun putting many of the little purchases to work around the property, latches and hooks, blinds and hose fittings. Wiring begun on the chook tractor and this afternoon a sitdown interview with the local Catholic principal. Work guaranteed but possibly some time away thanks to processing.

Signing off to doodle.

Peter Pan and the Red Pill Right

by Kimliatach

So we watched the first half hour of the 1953 Peter Pan which has frankly amazing amounts of overt sexism and racism. This got me thinking about the bizarre and alarming reactions so called Men’s Rights Activists (MRA) have had to films, games and books over the past year or so. I pictured the comical scenario in which guided by misplaced nostalgia Peter Pan was re-released to the big screen and the gigantic kerfuffle which would inevitably result between RedPill keyboard warriors and true believer Gender Feminists. This got me thinking about The Blank Slate(PDF Chapter link) again and I even began mentally composing a long form piece of the curious similarity between the two extremes in gender politics.

But… then N tagged out of a contested bedtime. Our beautiful progeny fought sleep until well past nine and all my aspirations beyond making art crumbled.

Speaking of my beautiful progeny. My firstborn A has been accepted into Law at Griffith!
Unfortunately not his first preference but a very good law school all the same. He may find he can transfer into his first preference with relative ease later if he still wants too.

L has finished 10 days of swimming lessons with huge gains in confidence and comfort in the water. He was uncomfortable getting his nose wet at the start. As he has taken a shine to the coach we are planning on getting him another 5 half hour 1 on 1 lessons over the coming month.

F has started expanding his vocabulary dramatically in the last week. This morning he said ‘Pterodactyl’ while playing with the toy.

We made minimal progress outside today as we spent most of the day at the farm for a family lunch. I have managed to knock out two cards though colouring on both and a revisit of yesterdays will happen tonight and tomorrow.

Fangs, which has taken more than its fair share of drafting, reference from bear teeth used in the end.

And now in colour! Not helped by my Wacom tablet drivers mysteriously malfunctioning. There are a couple of fixes to try but after trying one with no luck I persevered as is rather than get involved with restarts and reinstalls.

First lake terrain card.

Work on the Horizon and more thoughts on The Revenant

by Kimliatach

Thanks to family contacts I am as of today apparently top of the list for casual work at the local High School. The need for work is getting critical so that is very good news.

I’ve been scheming my Android v iOS comparison for some days now but I’ve again left it too late to start on that tonight.

Further thoughts on The Revenant.

I don’t ‘Like’ it and I can’t in truth reccomend it.

It has stunningly light, incredible suffering and examples of human depravity and absolute callousness galore. It is riveting but not I think, particularly memorable. Once the glamour passes holes and gnawing problems abound. For instance I am for some reason really annoyed that Glass can run on what was a very broken leg by the end of the film. Hypothermia is ignored for the sake of plot armour. The film completely fails Bechdel, yes it is about men in the 1820 frontier but there are women in the film, none has any agency. I haven’t read the book, nor to be honest am I likely too, but as discussed here (Spoilers) the film diverges pretty wildly from what was already a fictionalised adaptation of an allegedly true story.

Today I’ve completed principal line work on a Downs/Grasslands terrain card. Rough snapshot below. Linework needs cleaned up some as I’m trying a new pen.

I also pencilled what will be my first evolution card but I’ve not yet finished the evolution card templates I will frame them in.

I’m learning to use appropriate hashtags on Instagram. Garnering a lot more likes on my insect pictures thanks to them.

Difficult living subject, rescued from the dust in the sun room and released. Unknown #beatle 35mm #insect #macro

A photo posted by @liatach on Jan 19, 2016 at 6:47pm PST

Unknown #beatle deceased. 15mm #macro #insect

A photo posted by @liatach on Jan 19, 2016 at 3:36pm PST

The Revenant and Bureaucratic Nonsense

by Kimliatach

Double swim today, picking away at the value of the season pass, once for L’s swim lesson in the AM and again late afternoon when the heat was just abating but it still felt to hot to do work.

N butted heads with bureaucracy repeatedly today, converting to a NSW licence and changing surname at the same time is apparently a tall order, but she succeeded. Not so with the children’s passports which apparently have to wait until her new licence arrives because birth certificate, passport and a bank statement showing address are apparently insufficient for lodgement of childrens passport applications. So there is likely a two week wait until N’s new licence arrives and lodgement is possible. We may try in Dubbo if her licence hasn’t arrived by then. We remain eager to lock in flights.

Noticed at the pool this afternoon that we are apparently far enough south that this noxious weed is ornamental:

Mt what lovely flowers on that shrubbery. LOL #lantana

A photo posted by @liatach on Jan 18, 2016 at 5:36pm PST

Path progress

A video posted by @liatach on Jan 18, 2016 at 11:44pm PST

N has made some progress on the bike path. Six or seven courses of bricks down since this animation.

Rather than working this evening we watched a screener of ‘The Revenant’.

Having just finished it, I feel it is too early to pass judgment, I will share some impressions now though.

Incredibly brutal, visceral film.

I was repeatedly reminded of ‘Blood Meridian‘.

Nature does the best lighting.

Revenge stories are predictable.

Leo deserves an Oscar, but is it for this performance or for his body of work. I am not sure this is his lifetime best so far.

Tom hardy can play nasty well.

Alejandro Iñárritu puts his actors through hell.

Special Process Episode

by Kimliatach

Completed the first forest card today. As they are somewhat repetitive and tiresome I may limit the number of originals for forest tiles to a maximum of four.

It all starts with pencil,

Then Pen,

More Pen,

Bigger pen,

Now working digitally The black is separated and clarified and a base green is washed in beneath,

Highlights are added,

Then Shadows,

Finally it is cropped and resized to fit the card template, shown here in screen resolution with a watermark:

Vale Alan Rickman

Yet another splendid human lost this week.

Rickman played the only real teacher in the Potter series, he voiced Marvin in the more recent and unfortunately forgettable film adaption of Hitchhikers, he played many a truly fantastic villain and was by all accounts an altogether cool human.

More Force & Stuff

by Kimliatach

A number of people have noticed my lack of commentary in review over the similarity of ‘The Force Awakens’ to ‘A New Hope’. I maintain the new film did almost everything it needed to. It could have drawn from some of the best of the Expanded Universe novels but to do so would have required a recasting of Luke, Leia and Han which would not have been an acceptable outcome. it could not in the wake of the prequels do anything other than hark back to its roots.

Two relevant links:

JJ Abrams himself responds

Captain Phasma & Boba Fett

Enough about Star Wars, I’m keen to get back to my book and I have more drawing to do prior. I’m trying to knock out the first complete terrain card. Probably not going to make it tonight.

It’s been another stinking hot day, greatly limiting what can be accomplished during the heat of the day. Some paving done this afternoon, that slab is all but done.

L starts a 10 day class course of swimming lessons tomorrow with me as the parent helper.

Thoughts on the force awakens

by Kimliatach

So The Force Awakens opened a while back. N and I saw it in 3D at Southbank the day prior to the big move. Life has been such a blur since that, until now there really hasn’t been opportunity to record my thoughts on the film.

I can’t talk properly about this film without spoilers, if you haven’t seen it yet I suggest passing over this post for now.

You were warned. Also be advised that this post contains TV Tropes links proceed at your own risk.

The prequels were such a steaming pile of shit that I really don’t think they can be redeemed. Although I have downloaded a fan edit or two, which supposedly remove the most egregious problems, I have never yet gotten around to giving them a shot. For this and many other reasons I am now very glad Lucas passed the IP on.

I entered the cinema with very low expectations and I was on the whole entertained, impressed and occasionally even surprised, I would like to see it again so that I can watch for missed details and with a more critical eye, but that’s not going to happen prior to dvd.

I have in the past questioned whether JJ Abrams had been given to much power and I maintain that giving one man the mantle of reinvigorating both Star Wars and Star Trek seemed risky. His Star Trek reboot was fun but flawed, fortunately he did a better job with my more beloved of the two galaxies. That they have chosen to use a separate director for the next two films is a concern but we will just have to wait and see.

I do want more, I’m curious and even a little excited about the forthcoming standalone film Rogue One.

I enjoyed the reprisal by the classic characters and I found the new leads, supports and droids engaging and likeable.

.gif playback not working for some reason.

I am so grateful to have a Star Wars that passes Bechdel. As both a teacher and a parent I find the lack of female character agency in most hollywood storytelling very disappointing. 12 minute TED talk about this.

I love that our heroine is not sidelined in the final battle, the moment when she takes Luke’s saber is fantastic.

There is a moment in this film, a ‘will he, won’t he’ character turning point. Some of the audience gasped, I would have been genuinely surprised if he hadn’t. I suppose the great advantage of storytelling for children is that cliche only registers after repeated exposure to the trope.

Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher clearly enjoy stepping back into their roles. The killing of Han allows Harrison to bow out with style, hopefully Carrie will get more screen time in the films to come.

There are a few editing and storytelling choices that have bugged me. Chief among them is the way Chewie walks right past Leia on his return, this just seemed completely inadequate to the length of their relationship.

The other is the flippant service given to the annihilation of an entire solar system, or maybe the worlds were supposed to be further apart than that somehow. It really wasn’t very clear who was being targeted or to what end beyond showing off the big gun and there wasn’t even a real disturbance in the force moment in response to what must surely have been billions of deaths.

The action sequence with ‘Beholders’ aboard the junk ship was to my mind an unnecessary diversion in which some more exposition or character development would have fit equally well. Every film in the series has had some kind of beast moment though, so perhaps the filmmakers were just checking that off the list. Finn’s plot armour in this scene bordered on the absurd.

The old trope of a ‘one biome planets‘ has always kind of irritated me, but that is hardly new to this film.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the new installment and I intend on initiating L in the joys of the Star Wars galaxy before to long.