Month: October 2021

#REVIEW: DUNE (2021)

On By Luther M. SilerIn movies, Reading, Reviews2 Comments

I think the most damning thing I can say about Dune is that even now that I’ve started typing I kind of want to bail on the idea of writing a review.

I am more of a Dune fan than most people but not very much of a Dune fan, if that makes any sense. I have read (and, to be clear, enjoyed) the original novel four or five times, maybe, most recently within the last couple of years, but have never picked up any of the sequels, a fact I consider rectifying every year and never do. Over the last few days I’ve seen lots of people pretending the novel is terribly complex and difficult to read and I don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s long, yeah, but it’s perfectly readable. I have not seen the 1980s original film, either, although my wife keeps threatening to make me watch it, and is probably going to ramp up her campaign now that we’ve watched this one. Frankly, were she not interested in seeing the new film, I wouldn’t have watched it.

It’s … meh.

It’s pretty. It’s got an awesome sense of scale; anytime you’re looking at something that’s supposed to be real real big there’s always something in frame to make it clear just how colossal whatever you’re looking at is. And if I stop typing right now, I can move on with the process of forgetting that I saw it, which I suspect will take all of a day or two. Even complaining about it for a few more paragraphs will give my dislike of the movie more weight than it deserves; I barely have the energy right now to point out the bits that I didn’t like. I mean … bullet points? And not worrying about complete sentences? Sure, let’s try that.

  • The casting is terrible. Every actor is either bad, distracting, or Timothée Challawhatever, who is not remotely heroic. Why is Drax in this?
  • Jessica always, always, always crying
  • Slooooooow-mooooooooo. If they’d cut half of the slow-motion they could have included some, like, context for this nonsense
  • This movie is very serious
  • The phrase “my boy!” is 50% of Jason Momoa’s dialogue and he somehow isn’t even pretty in this movie
  • Terrible pacing. At one point they cut away from a plane crash so we can have a brief scene of a fat man taking a bath.
  • The fat man isn’t even fat enough. I’m fatter than this guy. I want my levitation belt.
  • brown
  • The Gom Jabbar scene is the best part of the book and Chalamet looks like he’s struggling to hold off an orgasm for half of it
  • half the film is inappropriately-timed dream sequences
  • The Harkonnens are, like, cartoonishly evil on a level with Cobra Commander and Skeletor
  • bleh

I mean, see it if you want to, I suppose, it’s not going to, like, hurt or anything, unless you see it in a theater and get Covid-19, and man, dying because you went to see Dune has to be the worst way to go ever.

On (not) being Catholic

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy4 Comments

I am, by any reasonable standard, a grown-ass man. Furthermore, by most reasonable standards I’ve been a grown-ass man for a couple of decades or more. You would think, after all this time, I would have some idea of what I was like. In fact, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that of all the available topics for me to know things about, “what I’m like” should really be at least in the top five or so in terms of how much I know about that topic compared to other people.

And yet.

I am an atheist. I have been an atheist for my entire life; there has never been even a single minute where I believed in God. My family is Catholic on both sides; my Mom actually attended Catholic schools for at least most of her pre-college education, and I think my Dad went to Catholic schools before high school. I could be wrong about that, but he’ll see this, so he can let me know. They made no attempt to raise me in the Church– I wasn’t baptized, never attended confirmation or anything like that, and we never went to church except for very rare occasions with my grandmother on Dad’s side. That said, I have referred to myself as “biologically Catholic” on any number of occasions– look, I just did it again right there— and I can fake Catholicism way better than I can fake other religions. My first teaching job was at a Catholic school– that’s the church right there, in that picture– and while I didn’t participate in prayers or anything like that I got along with everyone just fine and I was never aware of anyone being upset (or, frankly, aware) of the heathen in their midst.

Why do I mention this? We went to a funeral on Thursday, and said funeral was at a white Protestant church. And when I say “Protestant,” I don’t mean, like, Lutherans or something, where their Protestantism is basically Catholicism with some of the edges sanded off, I mean, like, there were chairs and shit, and there was a fucking drum set behind the altar. At one point a man got up to sing, and that man who was singing was wearing blue jeans and a plaid shirt at a funeral.

The Lord’s Prayer cannot be made into a song, by the way. He tried. He tried mightily. And he was talented! But that prayer is not a song.

Now, I feel the need to make something clear here: I have spent plenty of time in my life attacking religion. I’ve mellowed out a lot about it as I’ve gotten older, but I’ve done it. This isn’t that. Everyone at that church was perfectly nice, the service was fine other than the singing-the-Lord’s-prayer bit, and other than basically thinking the entire thing is fundamentally ridiculous I don’t give much of a shit how people practice their religion so long as it doesn’t affect me, and that drum set on the stage did not affect me one bit. But I’ve got to admit something: I was really surprised at how strong my reaction to seeing the actual sanctuary was. That picture up there is what I’m used to, y’all. And I had twenty or thirty oh what the fuck moments within my first fifteen minutes or so inside that place. I’m not necessarily comfortable in Catholic churches but at least I understand them, right? This? This I don’t get. Like, I know most Christian denominations don’t really go for robes and stoles and collars and such but apparently I really like being able to pick the pastor out in a crowd? And this guy was just, like, a dude in a suit, like a dozen other people in the building.

Who knew.

It’s a no bones day

On By Luther M. SilerIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I’m gonna go read a book.

There and back again

On By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

We have returned from our voyage to the northern wilds of Michigan. I have officially missed Parent/Teacher conferences, and in accordance with prophecy I am exhausted. I do actually have a couple of things worth talking about, but … yeah, that bit about prophecy. They can wait until tomorrow or the day after.

Meanwhile, I do believe I promised you a picture. This is even relevant to one of those future posts! Consider it a teaser.

Let’s talk about Superman

On By Luther M. SilerIn GeekLeave a comment

Or, to be a bit more specific, let’s talk about Superman’s son, Jonathan Kent. Superman has been a dad in the mainline Superman comics for some time now, and the addition of fatherhood to his character has been the best development Superman has had in since John Byrne decided that Clark Kent was the real person and Superman was the secret identity. Jon himself has been through a couple of different iterations already; he started as a ten-year-old (don’t ask) and then got aged up to about seventeen (really don’t ask) and recently he’s taken over as Superman, as Kal-El has been called off into space to deal with … stuff.

(I actually don’t know the full story there.)

Anyway, you may have seen in the news lately that Jon’s bisexual? Don’t worry about it, it’s cool. Jon and the guy who is going to become his boyfriend are super fucking cute together, and I’m behind this development too. The reason I’m mentioning this, though, isn’t because of the gay angle; it’s because series writer Tom Taylor may be the best Superman writer currently working today. He gets the character in a way very few others have, and so far four issues in Superman: Son of Kal-El is rapidly becoming one of my favorite books on the shelves. If you’re into comic books at all, and you’re not reading this one (or Nightwing, Taylor’s other mainstream superhero book, which is also phenomenal) you’re really missing out. If you don’t read comics but you’re open to the idea, wait until there’s a trade out (shouldn’t be too much longer) and pick it up at a bookstore of your choice. I’m pretty sure the series is selling well, but however well it’s selling more people still need to know about it. Go check it out.

Anyway.

Don’t expect much more than a picture or something tomorrow; I have a family thing out of town that I have to do, and it’ll take all day– the good news is I’ve taken the day off, and the bad news is that I’ve had to take the day off, if you know what I mean and if you don’t don’t worry too much about it. We’re all fine over here. I figure what with the hunting down comic books and watching hours and hours of YouTube video, y’all will have plenty to do while I’m gone, right?

In which I shill for my YouTube again

On By Luther M. SilerIn video games1 Comment

YouTube channel update: We finished up Kena: Bridge of Spirits yesterday, which was super cool, and today we’re starting Tails of Iron. I’m far enough ahead on my recordings that I might actually beat the game tonight, and if I don’t it’ll be tomorrow; expect 19-20 episodes total out of this one, so about a week and a half or so. I’m up to 42 followers, which is nothing in the grand scheme of things but I figure the numbers are still going up so that’s good. Go subscribe!

I’m still having fun with this, although it’s taking just a bit more of my time than I’d like since I’m getting home so late this year. If I was still on last year’s schedule I don’t think I’d feel like it was such a time sink since I’d have more of my late afternoon/evenings to do stuff with. Like, my schedule most days is get home from work, eat dinner, record for an hour, write a blog post, decompress for half an hour, and then bed. I feel like, y’know, some family time or something might be cool.

(Thinks)

Yeah, that’s what I’ve got for tonight, I think. Nothing significant happened at work today and I haven’t read or watched anything since my last book update, so I am, at least, blessedly drama-free right now. I’m sure now that I’ve said that the entire world will explode.

Blech

On By Luther M. SilerIn BlogwankingLeave a comment

Colin Powell died today; if you’ve been around for a while you can probably predict my feelings on all aspects of that situation without me going to the trouble to type them. Today is also the last day of my Fall Break– moving into the last couple of hours, frankly– and if you’ve been around for a while you can probably predict my feelings on all aspects of that situation without me going to the trouble to type them just as well.

My wife just came into the office to get some work done and I asked her if she had any strong opinions she’d like to express on my blog and she declined. So I’m going to get a couple of minor things done for work that I’ve been putting off and finish listening to Finneas Eilish’s debut album (so far, thumbs up, but we’ll see if I’m still listening to it in a month) and then I think I’ll curl up with a book or something. Tomorrow, perhaps, I shall have Opinions on Things.

In which that’s enough of that

On By Luther M. SilerIn Reading1 Comment

(Trigger warning)

See if you can find a theme in the last several books I’ve read. The first is Dorothy Allison’s Bastard out of Carolina, which is about growing up poor in South Carolina. The second is Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters, and the third is Denise Giardina’s The Unquiet Earth, which is a generational saga about coal miners in Kentucky and West Virginia that starts during the Depression and ends during the Reagan years.

Did you guess sexual assault? Good goddamn job. Both Bastard and Unquiet Earth feature explicit scenes of sexual assault, and of children no less, and Heinlein was a misanthropic son of a bitch who doesn’t pass up a single chance in his book to have his main character hit a woman. Puppet Masters is less explicitly rapey than the other books, but the MC in that book doesn’t give a damn about consent more or less across the board, at one point spending the night in the home of a woman he doesn’t have a sexual relationship with and getting mad when he discovers she’s locked him out of her bedroom. How does he discover this? He tries to get into her bedroom after she goes to bed.

Bastard and Unquiet Earth are both really good books despite the subject matter. Heinlein has had his last chance with me; I’m tossing him on the pile of Important Cultural Figures I Don’t Care About; he and Stanley Kubrick can hang out together and make things I won’t enjoy together. The next book I’m reading is a fucking slave narrative, so I don’t expect things to get any less bleak for at least the next couple hundred pages, but after that I’m going to have to read a few happy books in a row, because all of this is starting to wear on me. That, and maybe I shouldn’t have saved all the states where “living here is a nightmare” is a theme of all their literature until the end of this project.

I swear I had something else that was going to go in this spot, but I just spent twenty minutes sitting in front of the computer and screwing around on my phone, so … apparently not?