Birdumbic 3

There was the first one, no-one could believe it... there was a second one, no-one wanted it... and now there's the third one, and I hear a fourth is being planned.

Two extremely white people get together and wander around encountering badly acted exposition characters (including an extremely "subtle" [as in not subtle at all] person standing in for one Elongated Musky and everything brilliant he will do) and footage from other movies/documentaries. And spouting a lot of facts about Vertigo. Like seriously, James Nguyen really likes Vertigo and wants you to know this. It's vitally important that that one fact is driven home, if no-one else is taken away from this movie. Vertigo is the best film ever, you guys.

While the first movie had a "wonderful" song about making out with your family, this one has an upbeat song about how the planet is dying! Get down and boogie!

Finally, after two thirds of the movie (and after the obligatory "sex" scene, although I will give this couple did spend a lot of time together so their relationship is more believable), the Sea Eagles attack! By which I mean the terrible sea eagle graphic, because why not just lean into it at this point? And lo... did the white people drive around and get attacked by birds until they didn't...

The first one was Nanar. The second one, he tried for Nanar and failed miserably. This... this is just bad. It's not offensively bad like the second one, just that James Nguyen is either just that bad a director or if he is leaning into it, he's pulled back on the worst excesses and is coming across as merely incompetent.

It's too late for me, I'm condemned to watch these things, but there's no need for you to suffer. Just ignore it as hard as you can.

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Bula!

So last week... I was in Fiji! (See full photos here!) This was for my step-father's birthday (hence the cake you will see).

While we were there for a week, it took us a few days to get to Plantation Island, due to how flights operate, and a full (as in busy, with delays) day to get back. The joy of international travel! While there, we ended up in large two room bures each, due to our original planned places being under renovation. Nice upgrade, but it did put us further away for those of us with trouble walking. We had meals incorporated into the full package we had, and spending money, although there was a lot of confusion over what came under spending money. (At the end of the trip, there was a small bill to pay, that we might have had covered anyway, but wanted things sorted the night before we went.)

Our two main problems are a) Fijian time. "We need transport" "We're on it!" ... some time later "Is transport coming?" "Just wait"... some time later... "okay, we seriously need transport" "sure, we'll sort that". Caused not zero consternation.

The other problem.. it was very wet. Okay, this was the rainy season, but... We were away when Cyclone Gabrielle hit, but it affected weather in a large area, including over in Fiji. At one point, near the end of our trip, we were under consideration of being evacuated! Fortunately not, but certainly plenty of flooding (went everywhere in jandals, feet got a good wash), and part of my bathroom ceiling fell in (no major damage).

It's a very hot place. (And wet.) And... completely swamped by Western Civilisation. English was the default everywhere. And while you pick up a word or two, Fijian culture is a sprinkle to add exoticness on a place that is overwise been converted hard to appeal to Westerners, to the detriment of their own way of life in many places. Not great.

I'm not planning on going back any time soon, but I can finally tick off another country visited that isn't New Zealand.

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quMANuANTia

Took a while, but yeah, I finally got around to seeing the latest big budget Disney picture.

Following up on the previous movie, the Quantum Realm suddenly is a whole place and Scott and his crew end up down there. There are wacky adventures, and Kang is a thing, and you've probably seen the trailer.

It's... fine. There are good moments. There are average moments. It's a decent movie that will rate fine because it's a watchable picture that doesn't do anything outlandish (outside of all the "strange" alien designs) for a movie, doesn't get challenging, just is a standard movie that had a group of people in conflict.

(Yet again, no doubt people will claim that this is another death knell for superhero movies because this doesn't hit all high moments all the time. Doesn't need to, it works perfectly as it is.)

Best acting goes to... Jonathan Majors, which I don't think anyone will be surprised about. He already knocked it out of the park just with one exposition episode of Loki, and he continues to just being a sane man in an insane world. He's aware of how much of a problem Kang is, but he sees that as the solution too, so just builds that into the character. This will definitely be the Phase of Kang.

Oh, and don't blink, because in just a few months, the next one is here! And there's probably a tv series inbetween, I haven't keep track of the publishing schedule.

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Argon Fked Myself

Trapped on a plane (more on that later) so watched a movie from over ten years ago!

Science Fiction is the best! What can't it do? In this case, it is responsible for getting Americans out of Iran! So, yeah, small thing, Iran had a bit of a crisis in 1979, and some Americans escaped their embassy to sit with the Canadians for a while, and so this chap decides to pretend to film a movie so that he can go location scout and come back with a larger team than he set out with.

I do severely wonder about how accurate parts of that was, so... off to the trivia page! ... uh huh...uh huh... uh huh... sod all details really. One item that says the New Zealander (and British) effort was downplayed, because we weren't that terrible... oh, and a whole thing about the dramatic ending not being real. I did recognise that, just wondered how much it was made up.

Damn good acting in this! Big names that you recognise, although some were "I know I know that person, but..." And okay, I will give Ben Affleck credit for this. It's a minor thing, but so much of his usual personality is "quircky upbeat guy" that to see him play this completely serious and smile just about once gave this a lot of gravitas that helped emphasize that this movie wasn't fucking around.

Definitely a good watch! I can see why people rate it highly.

[And at this point, I'm surprised the in movie movie Argo hasn't been proposed to be actually made... maybe I should check failed Kickstarter projects...]

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Ito the Maniac

Big fan of Junji Ito here, so there is a new Netflix series of animated shorts of his, either one episode per or sometimes two per.

There's definitely an art style of his I recognise. "Hey, yep, that's an adult in his style.. and there's a creepy person in his style." Considering there's lots of episodes, I'm guessing other artists were also able to emulate that style.

There are a range of stories of his that are adapted, but most boil down to "hey, isn't this a weird thing?" Not necessarily supernatural or strictly horror, but mainly some upsetting element. But of course there are some straight up crazy stuff as well.

Some good stuff here, but yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to the full on adaptation of Spiral that is coming...

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