Speak No Evil (2022)

Danish couple with daughter meet Dutch couple with (mute) son,.

Not everytghing is as it seems when they go visit.

Liked it ok, but hard to understand how the parents did not fight back harder. "Because you let us". 

IRiver HP100

• DAAU - "A rain song"
• Janis Joplin - "Summer time"
• Murray Head - "One night in Bangkok"
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normative social influence, also, Losing

normative social influence - "follow the crowd", everyone stands in a line; you do so as well. Everyone drinking a beer. You're more likely to do so as well.

Also, too much exposure to things (ads) will start to have an adverse effect.

"Two Ways of Losing"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5HQaVy85s0 

losing are emotional events that make us (more) impulsive

people who lose tend to gamble *more* / higher next round. Losers tend to lose more.

regulatory focus: when dealing with responsibilities, motivations, goals, 

- promotion focus: preoccuptation with growth, realising ones outcomes, realising ambitions
usually work faster
trying to make victory happen
tend to perform better when dealing with failure
more likely to quit temporarily (instead of forever)
more likely to switch tasks
outperform preventors when they are required to switch tasks
switching is another chance to perform something new
studies suggest more likely to report higher well-being

- prevention focus: safety, securyt, avoiding undesirable outcomes, fulfilling one's responsibilities
likely to focus on tasks needed
trying to avoid failure/loss
more likely to quit (for good) when dealing with failure
often unable to move on from undertaking, as they are focused on preventing loss
perform better on tasks involving perseveration, less susceptible to distracted
less likely to swap
winning becomes more relief than a prize

Sakra

Curious wuxia film with Donny Yen.

Has normal "dancing" wuxia, but also magic (fire and wind/power from hands)

Sometimes almost Hollywood style western music.

Silly story at times.

And includes Mission:Impossible style face-masks??!!

Sin City 2 - A Dame To Kill For

okay. More of the usual.  Didn't have the magic of the first for me.

I saw the tv glow

OK, 80s/90s based mystery about a boy and girl watching "the Pink Opaque", with the girl later claiming she actually went there.

makom

 

Makom is een even cruciaal als wonderlijk begrip, een paradox in een woord. Het betekent zowel 'plek' als 'geen plek'. Je kunt er zowel de stad Jeruzalem mee aanduiden, een plek die je kunt bezoeken, maar ook God, een wezen waarvan niemand weet waar het huist. Het woord makom omvat tegelijk het verlangen naar een plek om thuis te zijn samen en het besef dat een thuisgevoel ongrijpbaar is. 'Mokum, de Jiddische benaming van Amsterdam, is een verbastering van makom'

J-F. Dubeau - "The Life Engineered"

Somewhat interesting story about capeks (robots), 2nd and 3rd generation, trying to grapple with their existence, humankind hidden in dormitories; should they create a galaxy for them, or should they kill their creators?

As idea, interesting. In execution, a bit poor. Random emotions assigned to the capeks.  Logic was often ignored.

Tom Merritt - "Pilot X"

time traveling, protagonist "annihilated" the three warring factions (including his own people) of the hidden "Dimensional Wars"

Ok read, flimsy story.

Woman of the Hour

"documentary" about a woman dating a serial killer on a tv show.

Typically Netflix; drawn out way too much. Also, strange jumps back and forth in time.

Civil War

Gripping drama about civil war in America, with journalists trying to get a final interviewing with the besieged president.

Not much fun to watch, considering the current state of things.

Ferry 2

alright. not super great, quality wise nothing like Undercover

Cormac McCarthy - "The Road"

Amazing read. Bleak, beautiful writing.

The cap was gone and the man dropped to his elbows to smell the pipe but the odor of gas was only a rumor, faint and stale.

Trousers rolled to the knee but still they got wet. They tied the rope to a cleat at the rear of the boat and rowed back across the lake, jerking the stump slowly behind them. By then it was already evening. Just the slow periodic rack and shuffle of the oarlocks. The lake dark glass and windowlights coming on along the shore. A radio somewhere. Neither of them had spoken a word. This was the perfect day of his childhood. This the day to shape the days upon.

No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy. I have you.

They lay listening. Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn't fire? It has to fire. What if it doesn't fire? Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock? Is there such a being within you of which you know nothing? Can there be? Hold him in your arms. Just so. The soul is quick. Pull him toward you. Kiss him. Quickly.

They scrabbled through the charred ruins of houses they would not have entered before. A corpse floating in the black water of a basement among the trash and rusting ductwork. He stood in a livingroom partly burned and open to the sky. The waterbuckled boards sloping away into the yard. Soggy volumes in a bookcase. He took one down and opened it and then put it back. Everything damp. Rotting. In a drawer he found a candle. No way to light it. He put it in his pocket. He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like groundfoxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.

1000xResist

This is straight into Kentucky Route Zero and Firewatcher territory.

Great story, about sisters, about Iris, surviving this plague, the Occupants (??), the Chinese immigrating into America backstory...

The visual story telling, the moment you think you have agency where you're going, and the game hijacks you naturally.

Sometimes the dialogues do *not* allow you to try all options, which is great.

The theme of a single place but shown in different ways, the whole "home base", first just normal, then celebratory, then at night...

The visuals become more and more amazing

How it makes you "discover" dialogue to "answer the riddle". In essense, it's learning the right responses. In reality, it's learning about loss and grief and emotions.

Ann Tashi Slater - "Summer in Tokyo: Rain Women, Cicadas, and Visits from the Dead"

https://magazine.catapult.co/column/stories/column-tokyo-journal-summer-in-tokyo-rain-women-cicadas-visits-from-the-dead

Before I came to Japan, I thought rain was just rain. I’ve since learned there’s shito-shito ame, a light, quiet rain—not to be confused with shobo-shobo, also a light, quiet rain, but in a slightly negative sense. Zaa-zaa is a torrential downpour, potsu-potsu is scattered drops when it’s starting to rain, and bota-bota is heavy drops as rain begins to fall.

If it starts raining while the sun is shining, that’s kitsune no yomeiri—a “fox’s wedding”—because the fox, a trickster, is associated with curious events. Ame onna, “rain woman,” is a woman who seems to bring rain wherever she goes. Aiai-gasa, “love-love umbrella,” means two people sharing an umbrella, a couple in love.

Silence of the Lambs

Still very much holds up.

Fly me to the moon

nice enough little caper about a girl staging the fake moon landing on film in case the real one goes wrong.

Kaliane Bradley - "The Ministry of Time"

Fun little scifi story about modern day Britain getting a hold on a time machine, and stealing a few people from different centuries in the past to the present.

    "Everyone is so cruel to me," said Graham, deadpan, "even though I'm very handsome and brave and I have never done anything wrong. Sixty-five, where are the rest of your clothes?"
    "Banished. I am never more bravely clad than when I go sky-clad."
    I started to laugh, a real, happy, unglamorous laugh. As true laughter does, it summoned smiles from the others. Margaret leant towards me, grinning, and I saw Graham catch Arthur's eye and roll his. It was a moment among moments, but everyone was held in it, captured in a small and easy joy. I return again and again to this memory. It's proof, you see. Not everything I did was wrong.

Oliver K. Langmead - "Calypso"

strange scifi about a colonisation ship where a schism broke out after it arrived at its destination, a planet to terra-form.

written in verse

Love Lies Bleeding

Wacky film about two lesbian/queer girls, one of them a body builder, who get into a Thelma  & Louise kinda situation after one of them kills the abuse husband of the sister of the other.