The problem with trying to make sense of a bad sci-fi movie

Have you ever sat down to watch a movie and realized, within 5 minutes, that it was going to suck, but you’d walked to the theater and your knees were aching and you just need to sit and rest for a while before beginning the clumsy trek home again, so you decide that letting your brain suffer for two hours is better than wrecking your legs some more? No? Maybe I was too specific.

Anyway, I tortured my self with Tron: Ares last night. I’d seen the original Tron when it first came out in 1982, it sucked then, and I should have known better, but over 40 years have passed and the memory had faded. Now I remember. Remind me when the sequel comes out (yes, it sets up a sequel) that I shouldn’t waste my time.

The summary: it’s a movie about unexplainable magical phenomena gussied up with a lot of bad technobabble. I can enjoy a movie that has magic as a key premise, but the technobabble kept bringing me up short, with a jolt: whoever wrote this thing doesn’t understand physics or biology, and for a movie that is ostensibly built around programming computers, they don’t have the vaguest notion of how those machines and skills work. It’s simultaneously magic + coding. Hated it.

What the heck is a “particle laser”? It’s central to the story, but it makes no sense.

Also, Jared Leto.

I shoulda stayed home.

The things we do for our kids

I’m back! We went to Madison, Wisconsin for our granddaughter’s 7th birthday, and also for brats (vegetarian style) and cheese curds and the fall colors and Kwik-Trip and all that Wisconsin stuff, but also, unfortunately, for a 7 hour drive each way, which was not fun. It was worth it, though, we wish we could see our kids more often, but most likely we won’t be seeing any of our children for another year, since winter is about to clamp down and trap us at home for a while.

Next weekend, we have closer plans. The No Kings rally is taking place right here in Morris on Saturday. You know, that communist antifa plot? The administration has it’s own characterization of the event.

n criticizing the rallies, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, No Kings means no paychecks. No paychecks and no government.

I guess we’ll be poor if we don’t have any kings.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated separately that the expected millions of attendees will be part of antifa, paid protesters. It begs the question (of) who’s funding it.

Except that we’ll be paid for protesting! Or will we? I didn’t get a check for the last one.

I don’t think it’s at all a question who’s funding it. Even far-right wackos have noticed some data.

The name, on its face, is unobjectionable, even vaguely noble: “No Kings.” Americans, after all, did declare independence from one. But the historical overtones here mask something more recent and considerably less authentic. For all its revolutionary rhetoric, the ‘No Kings’ protest movement is not a spontaneous uprising of civic-minded dissidents. It is a coordinated, well-funded, tightly stage-managed campaign, backed by nearly 200 far-left NGOs, labor unions, and donor networks, many of which are directly tied to the Democratic Party’s power infrastructure. It operates not from the street, but from the spreadsheet.

200 far-left NGOs, labor unions, and donor networks? Why, that sounds like a distributed grass roots network with many donors. The organization actually lists all their donors, and doesn’t pay protesters.

I didn’t use a spreadsheet to figure out that I have to oppose this president and his incompetent cronies. I’m doing it for my kids.

Looks like we won’t have ol’ Jordan to kick around anymore

Jordan Peterson has been hospitalized with pneumonia and sepsis, which shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The psychologist, author, and bottomless fountain of tears is currently hospitalized and suffering from pneumonia and sepsis, as well as a spate of neurological issues that have apparently left him unable to regulate his emotions.

His daughter, Mikhaila Peterson, took to X to give the world an update on her father’s health, describing his recovery as “slow and scary”, and admitting “we’re not entirely sure what’s going on”.

The stated cause of Peterson’s ongoing neurological and physical deterioration is SIRS (systemic inflammatory response syndrome) caused by mold exposure. This is apparently the result of decades of living with mold, though it was recently exacerbated by exposure to an especially moldy environment.

Mold can be sneaky and dangerous, but he’s been a godawful mess for years — when he sprang on the scene, he was already deranged, and he’s only gotten worse. The stint in Russia in an induced coma probably didn’t help either.

Here’s hoping he recovers, but that someone realizes he is mentally unhealthy and should be spending the rest of his life quietly resting at home slurping his soup and shaking his fist at the TV.

His daughter thinks demons are involved, but this is a case where an undigested bit of beef might play a bigger role.

Group portrait for Saturday’s podish-sortacast

We have a podcast scheduled for Saturday at 4pm Central. We’re bloggers, so maybe you’re not familiar with what we look like, so here’s a portrait.

You’ll never guess which one is me.

The topic: in preparation for Halloween, we’ll be discussing what it is about scary stuff that we like. We’re partly inspired by this Ologies podcast on “What’s Creepy”, which is better than anything we can do, but we’ll try.

Jane Goodall has died

Jane Goodall was one of my earliest role models, and now she is gone.

The Jane Goodall Institute announced the primatologist’s death Wednesday in an Instagram post. According to the institute, Goodall died of natural causes while in California on a U.S. speaking tour.

Her discoveries “revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world,” the Institute said.

While living among chimpanzees in Africa decades ago, Goodall documented the animals using tools and doing other activities previously believed to be exclusive to humans, and also noted their distinct personalities. Her observations and subsequent magazine and documentary appearances in the 1960s transformed how the world perceived not only humans’ closest living biological relatives but also the emotional and social complexity of all animals, while propelling her into the public consciousness.

Yeah, the 1960s…that’s when I was soaking in National Geographic and the pop-sci magazines, and that’s where I learned about her.

Definitely passes the Bechdel test

I ignored my doctor’s advice yesterday — I’m so fed up with being trapped in my house that I decided I was going to put my knees to work and go for a careful, slow, easy walk. I did, and I feel fine, except that I’m more tired than I would have been three months ago. This is my new regimen: I do the series of light exercises my physical therapist recommended, then I take off on a short walk. I might as well; the alternative is that I sit at home for the next six months and then maybe I’ll get surgery.

I walked all the way to the Morris theater, then sat for 2 hours, and then walked back. Yay me!

I went to the movie, Honey Don’t. I knew nothing about it ahead of time, other than that it was directed by Ethan Coen, which was good enough for me. I was surprised to discover that, if I had to describe it in only two words, it was Lesbian Noir. Margaret Qualley was a tough talking detective, Honey O’Donahue, who wouldn’t put up with any nonsense and whose two goals were to find the murderer and to get laid…which she did. The clientele at our local theater usually favors movies about Jesus, but I think if any of them accidentally saw this one, they’d have a heart attack and thereby improve the climate of the town.

There were a few men starring in the movie, but they weren’t exactly sterling role models. Chris Evans was a sleazy preacher, drug dealer, and corrupt exploiter of his congregation. Charlie Day was a cop with the usual Charlie Day personality, always hitting on the detective hero and getting shot down. The women were all strong and forceful and working for good…and for fun in bed. All very noirish, but with the genders swapped.

It was…OK. It had the usual Coen touches of turning dark situations comedic, good dialogue, and the characters (and acting) were all good. Where it failed, though, was in the plotting. It was getting interesting, when abruptly one of the lead characters had a dramatic personality change, with no build up, to be revealed as the killer, and then bang-bang the story was resolved, mostly, and we end with Honey picking up a mysterious woman on a motorcycle. Other story lines just ended. It felt like the director decided they had some good sex scenes, never mind the detective story, let’s wrap it up and go home.

It was an hour and a half long, but it desperately need another half-hour of story somewhere in there.

Anyway, I got my exercise in, and that’s all I really wanted. A little movie on top of it would have been nice.

Disappointment and despair

I was supposed to get surgery on my knee for a torn meniscus tomorrow. I wasn’t looking forward to the surgery itself, but to getting everything back on the path to healing. It’s been three goddamn months!

Then, this past weekend, I had a blood vessel pop in my eye. I immediately went in to the eye clinic, and they confirmed that yes, I had a broken blood vessel, and then to my dismay the hospital went on full alert: this could be a symptom of stroke, so I got blood tests, an electrochardiogram, a CT scan, etc. It was a long day. In the end, everything was fine, no signs of a stroke, the hospital could stand down, everyone relax.

Yesterday, the orthopedist called to cancel my knee surgery. I’m at elevated risk of a stroke, you know, so they’re not going to risk it (I commend their caution). Surgery cancelled, they’ll re-evaluate in six months. Maybe in nine moths. I asked my doctor what I’m supposed to do in the meantime, and she said to take it easy and maintain and consult with PT.

I’ve been thoroughly housebound for 3 months already, and have been taking it easy and maintaining and I met with PT yesterday. I guess I’ll continue sitting in a wheelchair and occasionally hobbling about with the aid of a cane, then.

Unless I stroke out and die, which could happen.