Fred's Blog

Category: Movie

  • Dune

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    Fred Rothganger
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    Just watched the new Villeneuve version of Dune. In addition to being an A-grade scifi epic, it accomplishes the nearly impossible: clarity. The screenwriter actually understood the novel and boiled it down to its most basic elements. Brilliant work. I’ve previously watched the David Lynch version and the Syfy version. The reputation that Dune is…

  • Tomorrowland

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    Fred Rothganger
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    When the credits started rolling on Tomorrowland, the theater audience erupted in applause. I can’t remember that last time that happened. The critics said it was tripe, but us stupid commoners seemed to buy into it anyway. Must have annoyed all those sourpusses. Sure, it was a bit syrupy, and the plot had a few…

  • Star Wars 7 — Spectacularly Mediocre

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    Fred Rothganger
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    I heard rave reviews from friends and family about the new Star Wars, for example, “The best Star Wars ever.” SW7 had quite a legacy to live up to, so it required the very best writing. (We can safely assume it had the very best special effects budget, so little worry about there.) I came…

  • Paper Towns — Romantic disappointment

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    Fred Rothganger
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    This movie had a reasonably good start, a slow middle, and a disappointing ending. Don’t get me wrong. I thought it was good, almost worth the time and money I spent on it, but it wasn’t the thriller the previews suggested. It was simply the coming of age story of three young men. The real…

  • Ex Machina — Jurassic Park for AI

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    Fred Rothganger
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    OK, I’m not the first person to make this observation, but seems apropos. Extremely rich man full of hubris brings in outside expert to examine creation. He flies to a remote but richly appointed place in a helicopter, where they are sort of trapped for a few days. (Screams plot setup, doesn’t it?) Expert is…

  • Age of Adaline — What’s so bad about immortality?

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    Fred Rothganger
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    The movie “Age of Adaline” has gotten some tepid marks from sites like Rotten Tomatoes. I thought it was a very well-constructed drama, with no wasted footage. For example, it shows Adaline’s dog growing old and dying. Then she goes and puts his picture in her photo album, and we discover he was like the…

  • I can’t believe in Panem

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    Fred Rothganger
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    I read “Hunger Games” and also watched the movie. Given the lock-step similarity between the book and the first movie, I decided movies were sufficient to get the rest of the story. I also watched “Divergent”, but haven’t read that book. I thoroughly enjoyed both stories, but there is something irritatingly out of kilter about…

  • The Imitation Game

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    Fred Rothganger
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    The movie “Imitation Game” amazed me! It was exceptionally well-written. It had war, spy intrigue, friendship, romance, computer science, and addressed Alan Turing’s homosexuality. It is an enormous achievement for a script to pull together so many diverse threads in a way that makes sense, with just the right amount of each one. So why…

  • Science versus Magic: The Secret of NIMH

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    Fred Rothganger
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    My family recently watched The Secret of NIMH, an animated movie based on the book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. I was surprised and annoyed at how the movie turned science fiction into fantasy. In the book, everything was the result of disciplined neuroscience research. The rats achieved success via intelligence and hard…

  • Data is a well-written android

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    Fred Rothganger
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    Crystal and I recently started watching through Star Trek: The Next Generation (STNG) with our 9-year-old son Justin. This series play during the late 80s and early 90s, and ironically it is now several generations back in the Star Trek universe. One of the central characters is an android named “Data”. I continue to be…