Nate On The Net

Cass and I went to see Blood Diamond this evening. It was a tossup between that and Casino Royale, but when she heard that the former starred Leonardo, she was significantly more excited about that than about seeing a new Bond who has apparently been referred to as “James Bland.” So Blood Diamond it was.

Violence and misery and hopelessness, oh my. While I’m still trying to digest all of the imagery that I just took in, I have to say that it was certainly one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while. *cough*gotchokedupeven*cough*. I’ve read enough about African-style civil war and conflict diamonds in the past to have an idea of what to expect, but I found myself simply stunned at points by the sheer brutality of the conflict. All I can say is that we in North America have no idea how soft we actually are. And while I realize that Sierra Leone has been relatively peaceful of late, one can’t say the same for Somalia and the Congo* (DRC) so the film’s core issues are still relevant.

Dramatization though it may be, the film’s central question is a challenging one. How can a man commit these sorts of atrocities against his brother – and by extension, how can we do things like this to anyone in the family that is humanity? I think I’d like to run with a simple idea from the movie, adapted for my own personal use: TIE. We’re born here, we die here – it’s a fucked up place, but maybe one day we’ll prove that we can make something better out of it (and ourselves in the process).

This is Earth.

* Note that cassiterite and coltan (columbite-tantalite) are both used in much the same way as diamonds, being sold illicitly to fund weapons and supplies for ongoing wars. Coltan apparently is used in capacitors and there is suggestion that Western consumer electronics may contain such “conflict goods.” Apparently other things are smuggled as well, such as timber. Still, nothing is so especially galling as diamonds, especially when you can get perfectly good man-made diamonds which are molecularly and chemically indistinguishable from “the real thing” by any means other than their sheer perfection.

A couple of nights ago I had the opportunity to watch Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium, which has been on my buy/rent/download list for a year now. I wasn’t disappointed. This film definitely goes on my list of favorites both for the amazing action and the stark aesthetic.

Funny enough, I’d actually say this movie has surplanted The Matrix in my list of favorites. Where The Matrix gets almost silly (“We all mentally live in a giant computer!” “Little scorpion tracking bugs will crawl into your stomach!” “You have the power to change reality!”), Equilibrium sticks to a gritty version of reality where the future just means more advanced bullet-firing guns and taking your feel-nothing drug three times a day like a good drone. The aesthetic of the film tracks the protagonist’s journey from cold killer to heart-led rebel and the cool monotone at the start is gradually replaced by warmer color, not the least of which is freshly spilled blood. Rather than altering or withdrawing from reality, Equilibrium proposes going deeper into the one we have.

If you at all liked The Matrix or you are a fan of dystopian stories, you owe it to yourself to see this film. You’ll be wondering by the end why Christian Bale was not cast as Neo instead of Keanu Reeves.

Has anyone noticed that Balligomingo’s “Wild Butterfly” uses a hook pattern weirdly similar to the bridge hook from Enya’s “Orinoco Flow” or is it just me? I could swear they’re almost identical. Given that Balligomingo has been accused of plagiarism before, I suppose this wouldn’t be a complete surprise…

I picked up this book recently since I have no major epic fantasy or sci fi series on my reading list at the moment, and thought maybe it would be worth a shot. The short of it? An interesting world, neat quirks and abilities, and such poorly written characterization that the story was painful. It resulted in a lot of stop-and-start reading until I finally took a couple of hours Saturday and finished it.

While I am definitely curious to know what happens to Karan, Llian, and the others, especially given the infuriatingly confusing ending (I read it three times, looked up spoilers online, read it again, and finally had to read the first chapter of the next book to understand what happened), I’m not sure I can sit through more pages of stilted dialogue, wooden characters, and predictable actions for another three novels in the main sequence. My verdict? Save your money, or pick it up at a used bookstore if you ever see it there.