The Family Man (2000)
The Family Man (2000) The Family Man (2000) is about a wealthy stockbroker named Jack (Nicholas Cage) who 13 years ago decided to go for a career with lots of money instead of his high school sweetheart Kate. He lives his perfect life with casual sexual conquests, a Ferrari, and the other materialistic stuff the […]
The Family Man (2000)
The Family Man (2000) is about a wealthy stockbroker named Jack (Nicholas Cage) who 13 years ago decided to go for a career with lots of money instead of his high school sweetheart Kate. He lives his perfect life with casual sexual conquests, a Ferrari, and the other materialistic stuff the movie desperately tries to tell you is bad. On Christmas night he encounters a strange man played by Don Cheadle. Afterward, he wakes up in a timeline where he chooses Kaite and a family instead of the money.
The movie is fairly predictable. Jack hates being a family man, but towards the end, he falls in love with the idea and the life he lives with Kate and their children. When he returns to his former life he finds it empty and tries his best to win back Kate. The movie is very reminiscent of better films like It’s a Wonderful Life.
The movie is funny at times and Cage plays the part well with just enough over-the-top Cageisms without it ever feeling like it’s too much. The big problem I have with the film is the insistence on the fact that Jack’s life before is inherently bad. The movie presents his life with a lot of money as inherently bad even though Jack constantly tries to get back to it. At one point Jack gets the chance to merge the two worlds. He talks his way back to his old job. He now has the power to have a family and a lot of money. The message of the film is that money is not everything, so of course Katie is opposed to it for very little reason other than to hammer home the not-so-subtle message. The film makes it explicit that you can either have money or love, but not both.
My biggest gripe is that so few people get to live the lives of their dreams. The vast majority of people settle down, buy a house, and get a family. They then proceed to live a relatively uninteresting life. Now, I need to stress that there is nothing wrong with such a life but the film does a poor job of conveying why this is inherently better than the rich life. To me it feels like the movie is tapping into a common understanding that money isn’t everything and what matters the most in this life is love.
Yet Jack’s life before does not seem so bad. The film does a few tricks like showing him waking up alone in the dark, indicating a void in his life.
The ending is to clique with a big expression of love at the airport of all places. It’s nice since it mirrors the opening of the film where Jack leaves. The problem is that Jack is talking about the other timeline and their kids. The only reason this speech works on Katie is that the script says it does. Imagine your ex from 13 years ago started talking about a different timeline where you were happy with children in vivid detail, would that work? Or would you run away? Maybe I am too cynical, but the whole end seems overly convenient.
Again, I agree with the message of the film, I too don’t believe money is what makes people happy. It is not the message itself, it’s the way it’s told. The movie is trying to gaslight the audience into accepting the premise without doing the heavy lifting itself. I also found Danny Elfman’s score to be way too prevalent, and it killed all subtlety with the bombastic music scenes where it’s obvious to everybody what you are supposed to feel at any moment. I found the last 30 min to be over-sentimental. The movie also suffers from being too long.
5 pitfalls that keep you from achieving your New Year’s resolution
We all know the inevitable blow to your self-confidence when your New Year’s resolution inevitably fails. Still, it doesn’t have to be this way. Here are 5 mistakes most people, including myself, make when it comes to making New Year resolutions stick. These tips can also be helpful in overall goal setting and are thus
5 pitfalls that keep you from achieving your New Year’s resolution Read More »
We all know the inevitable blow to your self-confidence when your New Year’s resolution inevitably fails. Still, it doesn’t have to be this way. Here are 5 mistakes most people, including myself, make when it comes to making New Year resolutions stick. These tips can also be helpful in overall goal setting and are thus not limited to New Year.
1 Too broad and abstract
When it comes to setting goals the best thing you can do is to be concrete. Most New Year’s resolutions fail in their total ambiguity.
Let’s take the most common resolution, losing weight.
Losing weight can be a lot of things. It’s not clear at all what people mean when they express a desire for weightloss.
Do you simply want to shrink your belly? Or are you trying to get a six-pack?
You are going to need different approaches depending on your goals. Instead of saying I want to lose weight
Say I want to lose 20 pounds or whatever your goal might be instead.
You can now track your progress over the year and have a goal to work towards.
2 No plan of attack
You have decided to lose weight, but you have no idea how. This is understandable, the internet is full of shitty advice for exercise and nutrition with everybody claiming to be the arbiter of truth and correct information. What I typically see when January comes around are a lot of people going to the gym, doing some cardio on the machines for 20-30 min, lightweight training, and then going home. Is this really the best approach? If you go into the gym at the start of January and just do stuff without a plan you will 100% fail.
Instead, have a plan beforehand. This could include your training, but if you want to lose weight nutrition is more important. Start by cutting out sugar and proceeds food, learn to cook some basic healthy meals you still find tasty. Start walking around getting your steps in, maybe bike to work if possible. You do not have to go to the extreme, start with cutting out the bad stuff or limit it in your daily life.
3 Small and steady wins the race
You go to the gym with the idea of losing weight. You need to do at least 30 min of cardio and 60 min of weight training along with stretching and commuting to and from the gym. This is a huge time investment and you will fail. You might be able to keep this up for like a week, but after some time the overall time investment will keep you from the gym.
Make a plan with the essentials. Don’t work out that long if you are a beginner you will see gains from little exercise anyway. On days you do not feel up for it you just go to the gym and do the minimum work requirement. Once you are at the gym it becomes easier. The hard part of establishing an exercise routine is doing it constantly.
The same can be said if you want to read more. Start by reading 15 min a day and then work your way up to 20 min then 25 and so on. Consistency is king here and like with the gym example if you have days you don’t feel like it, just read one page or one line. The act of showing up is the most important thing. To paraphrase James Clear:
“A habit needs to be established before you can improve it”
4 Failure does NOT mean it’s over!
Just because you cheat on your diet or don’t work out for a week does not mean the whole resolution is over. It takes time to build habits and become the person you want to be. The New Year resolution is just the time in which you start working towards your goals. Again this does not mean if you fail from time to time that you should abandon your resolution. The idea of a resolution being perfect the first time is unrealistic, so don’t expect yourself to be superhuman.
5 no fun
This is lowkey the most important rule of them all. The people who join a gym in January to lose weight are often having a miserable time. Simply stepping up on the ellipsis or the treadmill for 30 min a day is not a good way to lose weight, it’s simply too boring. If you want to lose weight and exercise more try a bunch of stuff, from swimming to table tennis to hot yoga. If you can have fun while doing exercise the whole thing becomes 1000% easier.
The same can be said about reading more, you have to find the books you really like reading. The problem with reading should never be the struggle to pick up a book, but to put it down.
Don’t just cut out all the foods you like and eat vegetables and rice. Find healthy alternatives that are more filling and that you still like eating. That way dieting becomes more fun as you constantly expand your horizon for new food recipes. To succeed you must enjoy the process.
Conclusion
The truth about New Year’s resolutions and why most people fail them is the lack of time perspective. People also want these get-rich-quick schemes when it comes to exercise. People want to “beat” their New Year’s resolution at the start of February and then go back to living their old life with the lifestyle that made them overweight to begin with.
The problem is that people think weight loss is something you can do in a month when you should set up your weight loss journey as something that takes a lot of time. You should think in months or even years rather than weeks when it comes to weight loss.
BONUS TIP
When setting goals people tend to set them based on their best self, the person who wakes up in the morning and crushes the day, well that person is not the same person who wakes up tired and sore in the morning after some time.
When you put all these things together remember that some days are just shitty, you might be stressed at work, you might be sick or life has just gotten a little too hard. In that case, I would say do the minimum amount of work. Drink some water and go on a walk, there is your workout, do something small that will keep the chain going. The Youtuber Mat D’avella has a rule allowing him to skip one day of working out, but never two in a row. You can experiment with different kinds of routines. Everybody is different and everybody has different needs, so find out what you want to achieve, set a concrete goal with a plan, and try to have fun while doing it.
Happy New Year
One Life when real life compromises spectacle
One Life is a movie directed by James Hawes. The film is about Nicholas Winton, a man who saved over 600 children from nazi occupied Yugoslavia. The movie follows Winton as an old man played by Anthony Hopkins as he tries to get rid of all the artifacts he still possesses from his past. Nicholas
One Life is a movie directed by James Hawes. The film is about Nicholas Winton, a man who saved over 600 children from nazi occupied Yugoslavia. The movie follows Winton as an old man played by Anthony Hopkins as he tries to get rid of all the artifacts he still possesses from his past. Nicholas still thinks a lot about the past, but the crux of his character is not all the lives he has saved, but all the lives he did not save. He sees the list with all the children he saved and his only point of focus is those who did not make it. All the papers he has in his house are taking up space and he needs to get rid of them as a way to let go of the past and on regret. Anthony Hopkins is wonderful in the role, but at this point that hardly needs mentioning since he is one of the greatest actors ever, however, credit must be given to where it is deserved and Hopkins is always nothing but fantastic.
The film moves back and forth in time and we see a young Nicholas played by Johnny Flynn as he embarks on his journey of saving all these children. Flynn captures the idealistic and somewhat naive Nicholas to perfection. He gets help from his mother, played by Helena Bonham Carter who is also excellent.
At some point, Nicholas is invited to participate in a TV show where he gets to meet some of the children he saved back then. The scene is of course incredibly moving and well done. When he returns home later he sits by himself and cries. Suddenly he sees the fruit of all his labor in front of him. A long list of names means nothing, fully grown people with families and lives are what matters, suddenly he sees what is most important. One might ask why Nicholas is doing all this for children whom he does not know and for a country to which he has no allegiance. He does it because it’s simply the right thing to do.
The story of Nicholas is an inspiring one for sure and one that I am happy to know of. It is amazing how movies can tell real and important stories that expand our understanding of history, but is it truly movies job to educate? The real-life story of Nicholas is good, and the acting in the film is good, but as a movie, I do not think it holds up that well. It sticks so much to the “real” events that the movie as a whole suffers.
Nicholas helps the children with bureaucracy and paperwork. He is facing obstacles in the form of demands from the government and of course the German occupation of Yugoslavia. The German invasion is something in the background, a dark possibility that looms over the character’s heads. Suddenly Germany invades and there are soldiers everywhere. This is a more realistic way to explore the invasion since it would be from one day to the next. However, as a film it doesn’t quite work, we know of the Nazis so we know the threat, that much is certain. My problem is that it happens very fast and as soon as the Germans’ role in the movie starts to finish after that, we never return to young Nicholas again. His parts end very abruptly. This is properly more true to life, but it makes for a half-baked movie.
The whole reveal with old Nicholas in the TV studio is nice the first time, but they do it again afterward with even more people. Again this is true to real life, but in terms of interesting cinema, it falls short. I can’t help but feel a little underwhelmed since I called that plot point way before they even did it.
For this movie to excel you would need more excitement and some more natural conclusions to story arcs. Nicholas´ story is a great one, but it is ultimately one that I feel could have been a 1-hour documentary or a less ambitious film. There is not enough meat in the movie to justify it. It is not like the film is “bad” and as I have already explored there are plenty of things to like about the movie, especially the acting. It has the feeling of a “Oscar bait movie” that is to say a film that is light on story and substance whose only real purpose is to make the actors have great performances.
Makoto Shinkai is a hack
Makoto Shinkai is a hack director! By that, I do not mean he is bad in all aspects, on the contrary, he is obviously very good at art direction. If nothing else his movies always look pretty. His films are very pretty with little to no substance if anything. So many of Shinkai´s shortcomings would
Makoto Shinkai is a hack director! By that, I do not mean he is bad in all aspects, on the contrary, he is obviously very good at art direction. If nothing else his movies always look pretty. His films are very pretty with little to no substance if anything. So many of Shinkai´s shortcomings would be mitigated had he simply worked with a better script writer. He is simply not very good at the story part of a movie. He is good at creating moments and feelings like in 5 centimeters per second, where he conveys the loss of childhood and love without saying much. This minimalistic style is not enough when it comes to a feature-length film.
What makes Makoto Shinkai’s film so bad? Well, it’s not so much that he is not capable of making a good movie. I mildly enjoyed Children Who Chase Lost Voices and I really did like Your Name. The problem is that after Your Name, his films have become more or less the exact same thing. This is why I call him a hack. Even if he tries something new in theory, his films are so similar overall that I am shocked he gets away with it every time.
Let’s explore Shinkai as a director and break down where his flaws are.
Makoto Shinkais’s first couple of movies are in my opinion at least LIFE THREATENING DULL AND BORING.
The Place Promised in Our Early Days
5 Centimeters per Second
The Garden of Words
Are all about love and how love fades over time. The theme and visuals play into Shinkai´s strength. They look pretty and the simple story masquerades Shinkai’s weaknesses.
Especially The Place Promised in Our Early Days is so mind-numbingly uninteresting, tedious, and bland. All the characters talk in this strange whisper-like voice. There is no vocal inflection, so the already boring narrative is further kept down by uninteresting characters and dull voice acting. Everybody talks all sad and quiet all the time.
The movies are all very similar in theme and presentation. A young couple falls in love, but this love fades over time and distance. In the end, the movies all end with a love that cannot be. They convey a kind of childhood melancholia. The Garden of Words is a little different since it’s a young student who falls in love with his teacher (and her feet) though the two main characters still do not end up together.
In 2016 Makoto Shinkai released a career-defining work Kimi No Nawa (Your name). The movie became a monster hit in Japan being the highest-grossing film in the country’s history, and a big hit in the West. The movie was such a big hit that it would change his future films, thus splitting his filmography into 2.
The first part is the films we already discussed in which love doesn’t win, where love fades with time and dies. After Kimi No Nawa the theme would be that of love being tested and in the end, love would win.
After Your Name, he made Weathering With You. A movie that is.. How should I say it.. Very reminiscent of Your Name.
The characters look identical and are even more forgettable. I get that Shinkai has a style and all, but the “pretty” visuals are not enough anymore, he has to bring more into the story department.
This brings us to his latest movie and the inspiration for this post Suzume.
Suzume is bad
Suzume is not a good film. It follows a girl whose name I can’t remember and I won’t be looking up because I don’t care. On her way to school, she meets a boy and is instantly drawn to him. Normally you would have a scene or two to establish a connection, but this movie is in a hurry, anyway, he turns into a chair and they have to close some portals, there are also cats who are Gods and so on.
I’m just going to say it. Having the main guy turn into a chair, even though it has emotional significance is a profoundly stupid idea for a film. The film is properly nice looking like the rest, I wouldn’t know since the whole Shinkai aesthetic has lost all charm at this point. The final climax is unbelievably underwhelming where he tries to go the route of adventure like a Ghibli film, but ends off more like his previous film Children Who Chase Lost Voices. It’s supposed to be a big epic conclusion, but it falls flat on its face.
The main girl has been living with her aunt since her mother died. There is a bit of tension between the two where the aunt has spent her best years looking out for her. In a rather strange scene toward the end, the aunt and the main girl are screaming at each other saying a lot of nasty things to each other. Their tension over the years has been building up. When they are done it appears the aunt was under the influence of another cat God, who just happens to be at the gas station I guess.
She says she did not mean it. This conflict is never brought up again. The movie is trying to have its cake and eat it too. It wants the illusion of conflict in the form of family drama, yet it doesn’t commit to it since it has to be a good-time kind of movie about love. If anything the aunt sub-plot is a distraction from the film and could be left out internally. The handwave all the real tension that could exist with the excuse of “a God made me do it”
Shinkai is a hack
My thesis for this post is the idea that Shinkai is a hack, not to say a bad director, though he is an awful screenwriter. Before Your Name, he could (almost) only do sad, slow-moving, pretty films about love fading with time or distance. However, it seems he is chasing the Your Name formula now. Let me explain.
One thing that I really liked in your name was the use of music. The way the insert songs were used was masterful. At the end of Your Name, the two main characters are standing on each train. Remember Shinkai has a history up to this point to end his films with no happy ending, but this doesn’t happen in your name. The two characters lock eyes, and the camera pans up as the music swells. In the end, they meet and it’s a happy ending. How nice.
In weathering with you at the end the main guy sees the main girl, the camera pans quickly and the music swells once again with a good insert song. It doesn’t quite work as well as in Your name, but it still works.
In Suzume he tries the same damn thing again, however, there is NO emotional resonance this time. The characters are less memorable and with even less personality than in the two other films. Toward the end of the film, I asked myself. “Do I even want them to get together”. The truth is I did not care at all.
This is why Makoto Shinkai is a hack. Even though his films are different in plot, he tries his hardest to hit the same tired emotional beats as he always does. If he combined his strong visual style with an actual good screenwriter I’m sure his film would be way better, but until then.
When are films boring?
What does it mean to say something is boring? What does it mean to say a movie is boring? When is a movie boring? Is something being boring a description of the work itself or merely a label that reflects more on the person who perceives the boring thing? Today I want to talk a bit
What does it mean to say something is boring? What does it mean to say a movie is boring? When is a movie boring?
Is something being boring a description of the work itself or merely a label that reflects more on the person who perceives the boring thing? Today I want to talk a bit about what it means to call a film boring.
I have a friend who recently re-watched The Lord of the Rings (Lotr). He told me they were boring and were made at a time when movies could afford to be boring. He did not say that HE as an individual found them boring. He stated it as a fact as if boredom is an element of the film itself. Is this true though? I am not arguing that he did not find it boring, of course he did. I’m merely expressing doubt in terms of the objective statement. If you were to say:
“Lotr is about a ring and it’s boring”
Is that a true statement?
These two statements are not equal or even comparable. Lotr is indeed about a ring that much is certain, but the “boring” part seems to be outside of the film. It is not a feature of the film, in the same way the plot or the costumes are.
A couple of days ago I found myself in the mood for Lotr, as a bonus I could try and verify if I found it boring. After all, I did see it when I was a child and I hold it in very high regard, but maybe nostalgia has blinded me. I pressed play and the results were overwhelming.
See, it is not that I am not capable of identifying what makes something good, bad, and boring for some people. It was more that I could not for the life of me conceive of it as boring. I was totally engrossed and even though my plan was only to watch the first half I was glued to the screen for three hours.
It opens with a great exciting battle. When there are no action scenes you learn something new about the world. Everything is paced very well and the music enhances every single scene. Everything is just great from the cinematography to the costumes. The idea that it was a boring film is inconceivable to me, I can not see it. Or, I should say I can see it from the perspective of someone who doesn’t like fantasy. I think those people could easily find it boring. My friend is not that person though. I did give him push back and he did say it was still good, just boring.
You can, of course, have something that is “good” and “boring” just like you can have something that is “bad” and “boring”. Consider a beautiful painting, you can admire the craft and the techniques and if you are interested in art then surely you would consider it exciting. However, the act of looking at a painting is not as stimulating as watching a movie, let’s say. You can admire the craft of something while being bored by it.
You can admire the painting, but the act of looking at it is not necessarily fun. The same goes for a slow but well-crafted film.
What does it mean to say a movie is boring?
At this point, it is clear that too much short-formed content like TikTok and shorts are affecting our attention span. The evidence is clear on this. Suppose your attention span can be tampered with. If you can strengthen it in some ways and weaken it in other ways wouldn’t a film being boring would be a reflection on you as the audience rather than of the work itself? If me and my friend both watch the same film and are both convinced of our assertion of it being boring and not boring wouldn’t that be clear evidence that the “boredom” lies with the viewer?
What people find to be boring is also subjective. People have different preferences for what they like and dislike. There can be many reasons why someone would dislike Lotr, maybe they don’t get fantasy, or maybe they only gravitate toward more realistic stories. Maybe their attention span is bad and they simply can’t focus for three hours. You see how the last part can be linked back to the perception of boredom.
Can a film be objectively boring?
I do not think so.
I find long action scenes boring, clearly not everyone does and action and excitement are the opposite of boring right? To me, overly large/long action sequences are flavorless and uninteresting.
See, the perception of what constitutes something as boring also varies from person to person. Some people just don’t like some genres (like fantasy) it would thus make sense that some people find some genres more “boring” simply because they don’t have a starting interest in that thing.
When people say “it’s boring” what they mean is “I found it boring”. I do this too of course and I’m not saying we should do something different or start saying it another way. I am simply attacking what I found to be a very shallow point of movie criticism. Dismissing something out of hand is one of my pet peeves when it comes to movie criticism. It is not clear to me at all that I would find a movie boring, just because someone else did.
The stereotype of something being boring is a slow-moving film where not a lot of stuff is happening. I am a big Stanley Kubrick fan, but I do find his film “Eyes Wide Shut” to be kind of boring. It is simply too long and too slow for me. It drags some scenes like the last talk with Tom Cruise and his friend out for way too long. Sure I can admire the craft which in Kubrick’s case is always impeccable, but I just find it too much of a test of patience. However, I fully agree that someone other than me, with different preferences and different tastes, would like the film more and not find it boring.
The fact that people’s attention span is linked to how much they find things boring, plus the idea that two people can watch the same film and one think it incredibly exciting and, the other would find it boring clearly indicates to me that a “boring” film has more to do with the viewer than the film itself. So next time you rant about a movie being boring just remember it’s not the movie being boring it’s you.
How to make a good holocaust movie
The holocaust is a challenging subject matter. The main focus point is one of the most evil events in human history. Stories about the holocaust are not easy to digest or watch. A good movie about this event can reframe your mind and priorities to a great extent. We all have a form of collective
The holocaust is a challenging subject matter. The main focus point is one of the most evil events in human history. Stories about the holocaust are not easy to digest or watch. A good movie about this event can reframe your mind and priorities to a great extent. We all have a form of collective understanding of the Holocaust. This means when we see films about it, we can infer a lot from the context regarding the history. And in turn, fill the gaps of the horrors.
As properly the most famous event in history. It’s not surprising so many movies are about this time and subject. Without being too cynical I would say it is “easier” to make an emotionally heavy film on such an event. since we again have this collective understanding of it. In fact, we don’t even have to see the event for it to work. This post is going to be about the 2 best holocaust films and what they both have in common. I will highlight this element as the “key” to a good holocaust film.
Son of Saul
Son of Saul is a Hungarian film from 2015. It follows a man named Saul in a Nazi camp. Saul has the job of leading other Jews into the gas chambers. At one point he sees a dead body and is immediately convinced it’s his son.
At first glance the idea of following a man inside a Nazi camp is horrifying. Imagine all the death and agony everywhere, imagine all the dead people. This is exactly the point “imagen” for what the film does is it centers very closely on Saul. The camera is always right on this body or face leaving no room for anything else. This means you can only see things in the peripheral view. Everything else is pure sound. We get to hear every little sound of suffering and cries for help. By having the camera so close to Saul we get to see his reaction in combination with all the horrors around him.
This is what makes the film so powerful. When walking around with Saul in camp we see little of the actual horror. Instead, the focus is on what we hear, which is infinitely more disturbing. Every little scream or cry for help gets drowned out by the perpetual wave of suffering. When we can’t see what’s going on we fill in the gaps with our imagination. This is where the truly heavy aspects lie and why the film works so well.
The Zone of interest
The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer is about Rudolf Höss. He was commander of the most infamous concentration camp of them all, Auschwitz. The film is about Rudolf and his family as they live in their dream house right next to the camp. The movie is tranquil with scenes taking place in their beautiful garden and nature grounds around the property. Not an awful lot is happening from scene to scene, it’s more about the daily lives of this Nazi family. At times they might be fishing, at other times they might be preparing for a nice dinner. The film is a slice of life, at least in the beginning.
The camera doesn’t ever move. It’s fixed in place and Glazer cuts from one still picture to the next, evoking a picture book-esque feel. At no point in the film do we see into the camp. It’s only ever in the background. We see some black smoke from the distance. We know due to the cultural understanding of the Holocaust what is going on. We hear screams sometimes, it’s ever so faint, but it’s there. None of the characters ever point out anything.
Having this small ambient sound of suffering with no acknowledgment from the characters makes for a particularly brutal watching experience. A lot of Nazis in movies appear evil from the get-go, again relying on the cultural understanding. The Höss family is totally indifferent to the suffering. Which is way worse than if they were cartoonishly evil like other movie Nazis.
The key to making a good holocaust film is ironically not to showcase how bad it was. In fact, by limiting what we see, we imagine things much worse than could ever be on screen. The thing is, what we imagine is far from how bad it was in real life.
The importance of sound design is closely linked with horror films. If you want a horror movie to be less scary you should cover your ears now your eyes. Horror films are dependent on a strong sound. Whenever you see the monster or the threat it becomes slightly less scary. I suppose it’s only fitting for these two films to have something in common with horror films. After all, they both tackle the biggest horror of them all.
Spirit of Vengeance more action, more fun
A year or so ago I made a post on the book Never Die. Where I celebrate it as a kickass and fun entry book into reading. The book is perfect for action anime fans who may want to read a bit. The book was self-published, and I tried doing my bit to give the
A year or so ago I made a post on the book Never Die. Where I celebrate it as a kickass and fun entry book into reading. The book is perfect for action anime fans who may want to read a bit. The book was self-published, and I tried doing my bit to give the author Rob J. Hayes some expositor. I did like the book as a fast-paced action story with memorable characters and a fun plot.
I later wrote another post on the second book in the series called Pawn’s Gambit. While the second book was more throughout, with a stronger premise, plot, and conclusion I still find myself remembering more about the first book. Both are good and worth a read. They are short and filled with action.
For the sake of consistency, I feel like I have to write about the last book Spirit of Vengeance.
The three books are all part of The Mortal Technique series. Meaning they take place in the same universe. You do not have to read the books in chronological order. However, I would recommend reading books one and two after each other since book 2 follows a character from the first book. You could read Spirit of Vengeance as a stand-alone, but Rob’s writing improves over time, so the jump backward might be jarring.
ENOUGH JAPPING! IS THE BOOK ANY GOOD?!?!
I am a meticulous reader. I like to plan my reading. I read in time blocks of an hour. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. I am having a hard time binge-watching a series or binge-reading a book. Cliffhangers simply don’t work on me and I always find that I can put anything down no matter how exciting it might be. Spirit of Vengeance is the only book I feel like I had to finish. I simply could not put it down. The ending showdown is so creative and fun to read I simply had to keep reading in order to find out who lives and who dies. The entertainment value is very high.
The book is about a man named Haruto an immortal onmyoji and a poet named Guang. Both men are not exactly who they appear to be and the constant twists and turns in the story are well-written, and breathe new life into the story when there is no action. The mystic regarding almost every character is earned and everything is set up so well. The two men go on an adventure meeting an older woman named Yanmei and a young girl named Kira, and soon all of them are teaming up for an epic adventure.
The team primarily fights Yokai and Onryo (evil spirits). The book is filled with creative and scary creatures for our team to fight. The action scenes are super well-written and a lot of fun. It truly feels like an anime even more so than the first book. The book sets up the villains as very strong creatures almost impossible to beat.
The Bad stuff
It should be noted that the book is significantly longer than the other two. Which is not necessarily a problem, but it should be said.
It does feel like an anime, but this unfortunately also includes some elements that are a problem for anime too. Some villains and story arcs are introduced and completed a little too fast. Like with the old lady Yanmei and her brother. That storyline did little to contribute to the overall story. It was a cool moment, but it did sacrifice the story for coolness.
Another problem is that the book has too many characters who have a relationship with each other. If you follow the plot with one eye open you will figure out who each person is and what their story and relation with others are. Especially the identity of the main bad guy was clear very early on.
The last sequence with the dragon is also god-awful and is actually what keeps the book down for me. After an exhilarating end battle where many characters have been in action and showcased what they can do a giant dragon appears. There is simply too much action with little time to breathe. I did like how they had to defeat it in a different way than simply fighting it. However, I do not think it adds anything at all. On a personal level, I thought Haruto’s story would have been better if it ended another way.
Conclusion
Spirit of Vengeance manages to be a love letter-to-action anime while still having well-written characters with unique motivation and good characterization.
If you are a fan of Ninja Scroll, Blade of the Immortal and Sword of the Stranger then I guarantee you would like this book. If you constantly find yourself struggling with reading, try this book.
A productivity system that maximizes happiness
I used to be a productivity guru kind of guy. I had a million different projects and hobbies to the point where I could barely get out of bed in the morning due to the insane workload I put on myself. If I didn’t wake up with a lot of energy the whole day would
I used to be a productivity guru kind of guy. I had a million different projects and hobbies to the point where I could barely get out of bed in the morning due to the insane workload I put on myself. If I didn’t wake up with a lot of energy the whole day would be ruined. All the meditation, the cold showers, and the journaling were just pre-work, after all those rituals came the “real” work, writing a book and or on this blog, trying to actualize myself in the world. All this while still doing volunteer work plus my actual day job just left me inflated. Uh, and I still had to work out. It was a lot. So I decided to downsize and only focus on what’s important, while not stressing over every little thing.
There are ways to be productive without burning yourself out. This post is about a small little system to make your life a little bit easier while optimizing for happiness. The system is also fun and feels a lot like a game. It’s based on keeping a score in your head or on a piece of paper. It’s reminiscent of football (soccer). You simply give yourself a point every time you do something good, let’s look at examples.
I woke up on time today and did not snooze 1-0 for me. I went to the gym before work to get a quick workout in 2-0. I said no to a donut at work 3-0 and I did manage to read a bit before going to bed 4-0.
The above is just an example. The score will vary on your goals and priorities. You can write them down on a paper or your phone, making it fun to compare with other days or you could just keep score in your head.
If you want you can add negatives into the system. I overslept 0-1, but I did go workout 1-1. and so on. You should only use negatives if it doesn’t bother you. Starting the day behind on points can be crippling and make you feel down, or it could motivate you to get ahead in the score, that’s how I use it. If you end your day being down 0-12 it’s clearly not worth it and you should re-prioritize your goals and standards.
The system should Ideally adapt to your own preferences and lifestyle. What you choose to give yourself points for will also vary a lot. I give myself a lot of points since I find it fun to do stuff and get ahead during the day. You can experiment all you want. Remember the goal is to get stuff done and feel good about it.
Convenience store woman (Sayaka Murata) existential angst and authenticity
The world is a scary place. We are thrown into the world with no prior experience. As we navigate this new and scary existence we seek guidance from others, yet no one else knows what to do, after all, they too are thrown into existence. This philosophy comes from the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. The
Convenience store woman (Sayaka Murata) existential angst and authenticity Read More »
The world is a scary place. We are thrown into the world with no prior experience. As we navigate this new and scary existence we seek guidance from others, yet no one else knows what to do, after all, they too are thrown into existence. This philosophy comes from the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. The philosophy works on an instinctual level. We all kind of know that we are thrown into existence with no guide on “how to do life”.
Navigating the world without any knowledge of what to do is scary. If you compare this concept with Søren Kierkegaard’s idea of angst, in which you have so many choices in life and no real chance of knowing what to choose, well then you are in for an existential nightmare.
To combat this society has set up guardrails to make sure people navigate life in the best possible way. Society outlines a path for all people.
- Go to school – Get a job – Get married – Have kids – Die
This is basically the blueprint of the Western world. If you want to avoid navigating an existential crisis you might as well follow this path. For most people, it works. It takes away a lot of scary factors and gives you an illusion of choice like what job to choose and what partner to pick. As long as you follow the path you are safe and you are free to navigate your brief existence along with the rest of us. But what if you don’t follow the path? What if you are an outsider?
Convenience store woman is about a person who does not fit within the societal model. The book centers on a woman named Keiko Furukura who works in a convenience store. Keiko is in her mid-30s and working a “dead-end” job according to the rest of the world.
The immense pressure to follow the path society has laid out is immense this sense of pressure from the outside world continues throughout. Everybody has an opinion on how Keiko should live her life and everybody is sharing it all the time. This book is set in Japan and is of course about Japanese people and culture. I am not an expert, but it is clear that the Japanese have a very strict social code when it comes to women and when they should marry. In Japan, it is expected for a woman to be married young. It is expected that they follow the societal path even more so than in the West.
While the social pressure is not as big in Europe and the US it still feels like a lot of women are constantly asked the classic annoying questions like “When are you going to find someone?” and “When are you going to have kids?”. It is perfectly acceptable to ask a woman during a job interview if she is expecting to have children soon (if she is young).
Convenience Store Woman is a short book that packs a punch. Keiko might have some sort of undiagnosed “problem”. She is very bad at reading social cues. She is often puzzled by other people’s reactions to what she says. I am not suited to diagnose her at all, but I do feel she suffers from a lot of social awkwardness or something of that nature. Her family is normal and lives within the societal path, they try their best to support her, but at some point, it becomes almost too much.
Keiko’s lack of social awareness makes the whole book even more of an emotional gut punch. Keiko loves to work in a convenience store where there are fixed rules she must follow every day. She has found her little box she belongs in, yet everybody else keeps nagging her with the same questions over and over again. Questions like:
“When are you going to get married?”
“When are you going to find a real job?”
“Why are you still working a dead-end job?”
All these questions are perpetuated throughout the book and it honestly feels a little heartbreaking. Why can Keiko not live her best life? She clearly likes working there and if it brings her happiness then why would you stop it?
People are scared when other people don’t follow the path society provides. In the book Keiko is looked at as an alien, totally foreign and strange. Society tries desperately to make people follow along, but Keiko is not able to follow along. In the end, Keiko takes a stand against all these rules and expectations. She chooses to work at a convenience store despite what other people say. The book is therefore a celebration of authenticity and the importance of staying true to yourself.
Glass Onion: How not to make a sequel
Glass Onion is the sequel to the successful murder mystery movie Knives Out. Technically it’s not so much a sequel, it’s more like another story told in the same universe. The title is Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. The only recurring character from the first movie is the master detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Graig). Both films fall under what I
Glass Onion is the sequel to the successful murder mystery movie Knives Out.
Technically it’s not so much a sequel, it’s more like another story told in the same universe. The title is Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. The only recurring character from the first movie is the master detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Graig).
Both films fall under what I call a cozy murder mystery in which there is a murder on the loose, but we are also having a good time while catching him.
Summary
The film is about a group of “friends” who are invited to a billionaire’s private Island. The billionaire in question is a man called Miles (Edward Norton) who is supporting each of the different characters in his own way. The friend group consists of everything from a tech genius, a politician, a former model, and a Twitch men’s activist called Duke (Dave Batista).
Miles has planned this whole fun game where they have to solve his murder. Things do not go as planned since the woman Miles started his company with Cassandra Brand aka Andi (Janelle Monáe) is also attending the game despite her being cheated out of the business years ago.
Analysis
Right off the bat, the movie has to establish the different characters. They have to be introduced, given a proper characterization, establish their relationship with each other and of course, establish why all of them have an excuse to kill Miles.
The movie does a half-decent job at this; a particularly good piece of characterization is when the different characters meet Miles and give him a hug. They hug him in different ways which is a great and subtle way to show some characterization. This is unfortunately the only good thing I can say about the characters since they as a group have very little chemistry.
While the cast is not necessarily bad it pales in comparison with the Knives Out cast. Where heavy hitters like Michal Shannon, Chris Evens, Christopher Plummer, and Toni Collet all had exceptional performances that kind of put this new cast to shame.
In Knives Out the dynamic is also different since it focuses on a family apart from the main character. This means the dynamic between the chargers is easier to establish and thus you can spend your time moving the plot along faster. The family in the original was strange and driven mad by the adherence left by Christopher Plummer’s character. We know things like inheritance can drive a family mad and pit them against each other or in the case of Knives Out against the main character.
The setting in Knives Out was also better. The big house full of strange artifacts and strange charters made for a more grounded and fun mystery more a kin to the cozy mystery. Whereas the big private Island feels too lavished to the point where it simply feels fake. The Island feels cartoonish
The beginning of the film is somewhat slow and it takes its time to establish the characters. When the second act kicks in the movie starts becoming rather enjoyable.
The movie has a lot of twists and turns. First off the murder mystery is introduced as a game Miles is making and thus the danger of an actual murder is less prevalent, even though Blanc tries to convince Miles (and the audience) that a murder could happen. Blanc figures out the game super fast and makes the whole ordeal feel obsolete and anticlimactic. Which is the point.
Andi comes off as extremely cold and unapproachable, it turns out there is a good reason for this. In the second act, it is revealed that Andi is dead and her twin sister has taken on the role in the hopes of finding a red envelope that can destroy Miles´ business empire. The plot thickens when Duke ends up dead due to postining.
What is interesting here is that Duke’s death seems almost like an accident. The real murder, that of Andi, took place off-screen. The mystery and the mission of Blunc and Andi are to find out who killed the real Andi and to find the red envelope.
This also means the movie suffers from an enormous amount of info dumping. Where people will stand in a circle and explain the plot or the point of the plot for way too long.
The climax of the film is also horrible in which secrets on a napkin play an important role. Yet one of the characters gets close enough to the napkin to burn it, right there in her hands. If the napkin was so important why would you not hold it closer to yourself? HOW COULD YOU LET HIM GET SO CLOSE?
All of Miles’s friends have to stand up for what is right and finally tell the truth, However, this is achieved in the most hamfisted and predictable way imaginable. It comes off as childish and once again not believable at all.
I also have some personal gripes with the film.
First of all, it uses pop culture references which I hate. References that feel out of place are sure to age the film even more in a couple of years.
When they tell the story of Miles and Cassandra they simply say
“he social networked her out of the company”.
Using a popular film like this to simply explain a plot point is some of the worst kind of writing imaginable. It replaces complexity with a movie reference meant for the audience and not the characters since rich and famous people don’t talk in movie references.
There is also a scene with covid and masks, and all that shit which we all collectively try to forget. It is no fun being reminded of that time. There are also other references like Among Us, Shazam, and the red-pill movement.
All these references technically fit the time the movie is set in, but they feel lazy and poorly integrated.
Ethen Hawk and Hugh Grant are also in one scene for thirty seconds. Why? It’s super distracting to have big-name actors in a movie for so little time since you could easily have cast a no-name actor to do the same role for cheaper. It’s cool when Wes Anderson does it, but not anyone else.
Conclusion
Overall glass onion is not a good film. Its cast is forgettable apart from Daniel Craig. The setting feels cartoonish and not believable at all. The characters are bland, the plot is overly convoluted, the decisions of the characters suck. The climax is weak.
As of the publishing of this post, they are working on a Knives Out 3 once again with the same director as the two previous Films Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig. When it comes to Hollywood franchises, The Knives Out universe is not the worst. However, I do feel they Struck gold on the first movie and in pursuit of milking the success are making it bigger and bigger movies that feel more and more unrealistic and fake. For these kinds of movies, you have to come up with twists and turns, and by turning it into a franchise I fear the twists are going to be weirder and weirder.
Glass Onion is on the verge of a particularly stupid twist. If the audience has no chance of figuring out who the murderer is beforehand then these kinds of stories lose their charm a bit.
If The films feel like these big Hollywood productions then the coziness wears off as well.