This setup, which I have no intention of making permanent, is what happens when I realize I have a 43″ TV in my bedroom that is not ever used– has been sitting there not even plugged in for months, in fact– and decide to see what happens when I try and use it as a secondary monitor. I have been tossing around the idea of moving the PS5 into the office so that I’m not monopolizing the TV that’s in there with my nonsense, and this won’t be the TV I use if I actually do that, but it got me wondering. My iMac is a 27″ 5K monitor, and the previous secondary monitor was mostly used for TweetDeck or for keeping videos running on while I did other stuff on the primary monitor. If I use this one, the resolution isn’t as good as the primary but the size overwhelms it, so … I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing right now.
Maybe I use this TV as a monitor and buy another one for the table behind me to play on.
Let’s be real, here: this movie is as review-proof as a movie can be. You already knew when you saw the words Godzilla Vs. Kong whether this was going to be a movie you were going to want to see, and no amount of bad reviews can talk someone who wants to see a movie called Godzilla Vs. Kong out of seeing a movie called Godzilla Vs. Kong.
The only meaningful criticisms that can be made of a giant monster punching other giant monster movie is to compare it to other giant monster punching other giant monster movies. You gotta compare it to its competition, y’know? So, for what it’s worth: I’ve seen Pacific Rim and Godzilla (2014) and Kong: Skull Island. although Godzilla: King of the Monsters or whatever it was called has thus far escaped my attention. I disliked Pacific Rim quite a bit and enjoyed Godzilla and Skull Island, although I don’t seem to have reviewed the latter. Godzilla vs. Kong is not as good as either of the two previous entries, unfortunately, although the jury’s still out on whether it’s better than Pacific Rim.
And the funny thing is that where GvK falls down is more or less exactly the same place where Pacific Rim falls down: that this movie has injected additional stupid where stupid was not necessary. Stupid is a choice, people! Every single second and every single object on-screen in a movie like this was on purpose; they did not have to do a single thing, so anytime something is blatantly stupid it’s either because they decided they wanted it that way or they didn’t notice, which is worse. Now, it’s possible that a big chunk of the stupid in GvK is King of the Monsters‘ fault, but all that does is push the dumb back a generation; it doesn’t excuse it. Whoever was responsible for the phrase gravitational inversion being in this movie should be flogged. I can ignore the fact that scientifically speaking both Godzilla and Kong are literally too big to exist on land because giant monsters are cool. They add something to the movie. You could snip the entire idiotic hollow Earth plot completely out of this movie and absolutely nothing of value would be lost except for runtime. It was only included to make the movie longer and stupider and, I suppose, to give Kong his magic axe.
King fucking Kong does not need a magic goddamned axe. You know what would be cooler than King Kong carrying a magic axe? King Kong snapping a skyscraper off at the base and whacking Godzilla in the face with it. Would it be scientifically accurate? Of course not. Would it be cool? Yes. And the axe is kind of cool but it is the only thing about the detour into the hollow Earth that eats up the entire first 2/3 of the movie that actually, like, matters. Other than that it’s all wasted time, and worse, wasted time that adds extra stupid and extra questions– like, for example, exactly how did you get the 60,000-ton gorilla onto that aircraft carrier? You sedated him, you say? With fucking what? And after he wakes up and has a deeply unfair battle with Godzilla where Godzilla is breaking other aircraft carriers like they’re made of popsicle sticks but somehow neglects to break Kong‘s aircraft carrier like it’s made of popsicle sticks, how did you manage to re-sedate him to get him into that net that you carry him — I am not joking– to Antarctica in?
The movie spends thirty minutes on gravitational inversion, a concept so stupid that I refuse to get into the details of its role in the movie because it hurts me, but does not explain how they got a 350-foot-tall unconscious gorilla into a net. Nor does it explain how they rendered said 350-foot-tall gorilla unconscious in the first place. Or the second.
And there is just not enough punching to make up for all of these decisions to add stupid into the movie. They could have written around all of this stuff. None of it had to be there. But dozens of people woke up every day while they were working on this and chose stupid over exciting, and I have to report it that way.
(You may be wondering who won. Don’t worry, this is not a spoiler review, but let me simply say that one entity definitely loses. Other aspects may be up for debate. That’s all I’m saying.)
Yes goddammit of course I have a Disney+ subscription. I may actually have already mentioned ponying up around here; I signed up a few weeks ago and have been waiting impatiently ever since for the damn thing to actually launch. The entertaining bit is that after those several weeks of impatience I actually forgot until an hour or so ago that the thing was launching today, and didn’t get everything signed in and hooked up until just before dinner.
What am I watching first? Captain Marvel, of course, but we will absolutely be watching the first episode of The Mandalorian before bed, especially now that I have confirmed that a certain thing I was worried about does not actually happen in the show. (No spoilers, of course.)
We spent a couple of minutes scrolling through the available offerings and my wife went entertainingly nuts over some of the possibilities, so I think our $6.99 for at least the first month or two are going to be pretty well-spent. For me, the Star Wars and Marvel content is gonna be more than enough to keep me busy for a while, and having all the classic Disney films, many of which my son hasn’t seen, is icing on the cake.
I have actually gotten some stuff done in the last few days– Benevolence Archives 9 got written and submitted to Lightspeed Magazine, and by the end of the night Starlight ought to be cracking the 10K word barrier, which is kind of a big deal psychologically, even if it took way too long to get there. There have also been various errands run and deeds accomplished, in addition to going slowly insane from job-related stress.
I have also been watching this man beat Bloodborne, in its entirety, every boss, using only the gun. Which by rights ought to be impossible. And yet he does it. I know! He has like 12 hours of videos uploaded to YouTube and over the last couple of days I have watched (or, at least, had running on one monitor while I did something with the other– I love having a dual-monitor setup) every second of it.
Every.
Second.
People appear to be sending him money while he is doing this, by the way.
Video game streaming culture is interesting. Part of me wants to run screaming because of the timesink aspect and part of me thinks this is a way cheaper way to stay current on what’s going on out there. I think I probably need to choose “run screaming,” but who knows.
Benevolence Archives, Vol. 1 is now indisputably available in print, just in case you’ve spent the last fourteen months chewing your fingers and hoping. Order away, if you like– just remember it’s also in Sanctum, and you get a better deal if you buy Sanctum.
Sitting on the couch in the living room right now, watching the snow outside, which has been stuck on “whiteout” for the past half hour or so. I’m listening to Johnny Cash entertain a bunch of convicts at Folsom Prison in 1968. The boy’s taking his nap, the dogs are sacked out and content. There’s an enormous book about World War II next to me waiting for me to get back to it. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
The Cash is playing through my Apple TV. When you’re listening to music, it plays a screen saver. I got tired of looking at the nature pictures it plays and just for the hell of it told it to start showing me movie posters as a screensaver. I’ve been sorta idly watching them as they’ve scrolled across my screen. And then it hit me: I really miss watching movies. There were several years in my life, most of the time I was living in Chicago, in fact, where I was seeing 40-45 movies a year.
I have not seen a single movie nominated for an Academy Award this year. Not one. And of the nine Best Picture nominees, I only have a haziest idea of the plot of five. I’ve never even heard of Philomena, Dallas Buyers’ Club or Nebraska. And there are lots of movies that I’m seeing posters for that at least pass the initial “that looks interesting” test.
(Sidenote: poster for 3 Days to Kill just spun past. When did Kevin Costner turn into Tom Selleck?)
I don’t remember the last time I saw a movie in a theater that didn’t have at least one Avenger in it, and that kind of makes me sad. And, to make it worse, it’s not like I don’t have all kinds of access to movies– I can stream damn near anything I want a few months after it hits theaters, and you best believe my iTunes wish list, which I’m using as a “Watch this!” queue, is chock full of stuff– I’m just not doing it. This could turn into a typical new-parent “get a babysitter/pay the babysitter/pay for the movie/pay for dinner/night costs $150” rant, but it’s not that. I have time to watch movies if I want. I just don’t. My priorities have shifted. And it’s a weird feeling, knowing that I want to do something, and I have the opportunity to do something, and that I’m just not going to. For no clear reason.
Anyway, that’s all. I could go get my DVD of The Maltese Falcon out of the rack in my office and watch it now, like I’ve kinda wanted to since rereading the book a month ago. What’ll probably happen is that I’ll clean up the living room or read something and keep on listening to Johnny Cash. I dunno why.
Sitting on the couch in the living room right now, watching the snow outside, which has been stuck on “whiteout” for the past half hour or so. I’m listening to Johnny Cash entertain a bunch of convicts at Folsom Prison in 1968. The boy’s taking his nap, the dogs are sacked out and content. There’s an enormous book about World War II next to me waiting for me to get back to it. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
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