Month: April 2024

Concrete Utopia
(Konkeuriteu Yutopia,
콘크리트 유토피아)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 1 April 2024
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(Konkeuriteu Yutopia,
콘크리트 유토피아)
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Director – Eom Tae-hwa – 2023 – South Korea – Cert. 15 – 130m

****1/2

A massive earthquake makes the residents of the sole Seoul apartment block still standing close their doors to survivors outside – out on UK digital platforms on Monday, April 1st

Concrete: a structural material made of aggregate, cement, and water. (Definition from Encyclopedia Britannica.) Harsh. Unyielding. Impenetrable. Opaque. Not alive. Commonly used in today’s world in the manufacture of buildings, and associated with Brutalist architecture.

Utopia: an ideal community whose inhabitants exist under seemingly perfect conditions. (Definition from Encyclopedia Britannica.) The English word derives from two Greek words, the compound meaning of which is nowhere. Hence, “seemingly”. Utopias tend to have some fatal flaw. If they didn’t, any story about them would lack dramatic conflict. Thus, the word carries within it a degree of irony.

The eponymous montage of these two words pits them against each other: an unyielding, dead physicality confronts the optimism of a better world. The title evokes JG Ballard’s novels Concrete Island (1974) and High-Rise (1975), the former about a stranded motorist struggling to survive on a spaghetti junction after a car accident, the latter about a newly built block of flats in which the residents descend through social breakdown towards a new order.… Read the rest

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Disconnect Me

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 1 April 2024
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Director – Alex Lykos – 2023 – Australia – Cert. 12 – 87m

***1/2

A man attempts to live for 30 days without the use of his smartphone, tablet or computer – out on digital from Monday, April 1st

This documentary opens with an advisory to keep your phone handy during the screening, as you may be required to use it at some point. In the UK, it’s only available on digital platforms… but even so, that advisory marks it out as different from most films.

Lykos, who narrates his documentary, is old enough to have grown up without a smartphone or other digital devices, but kids today handle smartphones from a younger and younger age. What would happen, wonders Alex, if I disconnected myself for an entire month? His and his wife’s home contains their two smartphones, two tablets, and a TV. Learning that Alex wakes and checks his smartphone three or four times a night, Alex’s doctor wires him for a sleep test.

Like many of us, Alex finds himself spending an hour on social media and wondering, what just happened? He and others admit to feelings of envy when others post about good things in their lives. A near-tearful divorcee talks about it being hard seeing people having a good time with partner or family.… Read the rest

Tags 30 days, ADHD, advertising revenue, AI, alcohol, Alex Lykos, Amanda Third, anorexia message, antenna, anxiety, attention, Australia, authoritarian governments, binge-watching TV series, board game, body image issues, Bolivia, brain, brain chip transplants, brain enhance, bullying, check smartphone at night, child labour, cigarettes, climate change, clinical psychiatrist, cognitive impairment, colour-blind, computer, Cultural Research, cyborg, cyborg artist, Cyborg Artist Neil Harbisson, Dalek, data service provider, David Cronenberg related, depression, digital, digital alarm clock, diminished critical thinking, disconnect; access, distraction, doctor, documentary, Dr. Catriona Wallace, Dr. Danielle Einstein, driving, economics, envy, evolution, experiment, Facebook, feel valued, first world, flipper phone, flippy, friends, gambling, get a real job, golf, government services, Greek, human extinction, impulsivity, injustice, interaction with AI, international regulation, justice, kids today, killing machines, landline phone, laptop, lethal autonomous weapons, life expectancy, live without, loneliness, loo, low self-esteem, machines taking over, med, medicine, Meta, mining minerals, Monopoly, month, National Broadcast Network, NBN, neck position, need to talk, negative space, Neil Harbisson, news, newspaper, not answering the phone, OCD, paper, parents and children, phone snubbing, phubbing, poorer countries, posture, prescription, primary school, Professorial Research Fellow, QR codes, reach, reduced attention span, regulation, Responsible Metaverse Alliance, rotary, safe, security code, shopping, sleep disorders, sleep test, smartphone, smartphone production, smartphone use, smartphones in the classroom, Social, social media, sports results, Sydney, tablet, target, target audience, technology, technology specialist, teenagers, television, third world, Timothy Stackpool, toilet, traffic, traffic accident, transhumanism, TV, updates, view, vox pops

Animation Features Live Action Movies

Godzilla
King of the Monsters
(2019)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 3 April 2024
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King of the Monsters
(2019)

Director – Michael Dougherty – 2019 – US – Cert. 12a – 132m

***

Fantastical, giant creatures Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Mothra and Rodan battle it out on land and sea, leaving cities devastated in their wake – in cinemas from Wednesday, May 29th 2019

Warner Bros’ latest effort in their strategy to create a self-contained universe out of Toho’s Godzilla and his accompanying trademark monster characters to rival that of Disney’s popular Star Wars and Marvel cinematic universes is a mixed bag. On one level, it’s a hackneyed family story involving a couple splitting apart with their daughter caught in the middle, a plot not of the slightest interest to fans of Godzilla who aren’t paying to see a family drama. On another level, it’s a thinly veiled excuse to recreate Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Mothra, Rodan and others with state-of-the-art, special effects technology and have them fighting against one another, at which aim it succeeds handsomely. In passing, it delivers facile, one-line ideas about nuclear war and global warming. Finally, it wants to explore the iconography of these extraordinary creatures, but scarcely knows where to begin. They are great properties, but you can’t help but wish it was directed and produced by people with a stronger visionary sense.… Read the rest