lesunra

When a dumb crew meets dumb luck for the bad guys, you can guess the result. It's a bleak story that doesn't need to be bleak if a few extremely convenient things don't happen to advance the plot and I mean violations to my suspension of disbelief convenient. It wrecks the movie for me entirely and that's pretty unfortunate considering the other aspects of the movie are pretty good.

I don't want to dig deeply into the rotten story so I'll summarize it like this. It starts with a convenient accident, then a convenient planet that distracts a conveniently dumb replacement captain, they conveniently take minimum precautions, things go bad, they are conveniently even dumber handling a crisis (why were you picked to go into deep space if you can't handle this?), then conveniently the remaining crew of the previous prequel are discovered, they conveniently trust the narrative told by the android about what happened, it's too late to change what happens next (being dumb only gets you so far before things happen on their own because of it), some events too common (cliché) to Alien movies happen to advance the plot to a conclusion that feels undeserved because it wasn't earned. It all just drops into a lap conveniently. Then it ends and I wish I did something else than watch it.

I feel like the atmosphere and visuals conned me into watching something stupid because the story makes Psycho 2 sound less ridiculous by comparison and at least Psycho 2 was unintentionally hilarious.

I've never been one to shy away from looking back in history for the kind of entertainment that suits me. Cronenberg's Videodrome (and ExistenZ), Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Frankenheimer's Seconds, Coppola's The Conversation, any Lindasy Anderson movie, The 1960s Prisoner TV show, A Very Peculiar Practice, and of course the works of Franz Kafka, George Orwell, JG Ballard's High Rise, and early Louis Ferdinand Celine. I won't include David Lynch in this list. He went beyond the others(I mean I can get the significance of Gregor turning into a cockroach but I'll never understand those new man made chickens in Eraserhead, is that like lab grown meat?). This show carries on in a similar fashion. I liken it to a strange sounding but good David Bowie album. There's good commercial sounding Bowie like half of Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Let's Dance, Earthling and The Next Day. Then there's strange sounding good Bowie albums like half of Hunky Dory, Low, Heroes, Lodger, Scary Monsters, Heathen and Blackstar. I like the strange ones.

The show is stark, cold and minimalist. Part of the plot is similar to the movie The Eternal Sunshine on The Spotless Mind. Several key characters have a procedure done to divide their minds from their work lives and their private lives. Some had the procedure done to not have work affect their personal lives, some had it to escape their pasts, some to escape emotional trauma but all of this is done by the corporation to maintain security. Their lives are completely independent from their others but things all fall apart when their livès at work still with emotions, feelings, and craving the things their outside selves always took for granted, like family, friendship and romance, sense they're losing what little they find of that from each other because of who keeps them there underground.

The acting is excellent throughout especially with the leads playing dual roles.

The score is like David Shire's for The Conversation which is similar to Erik Satie. Lonely awkward sounding solo piano at times.

It gets into allegories for hell but sometimes you can't tell which world is more like hell, the outside world or inside.

The seasons end strong with a kind of ending you can believe in the world created. Very well written. Perhaps the show ends with 2 seasons and they don't carry on which frankly isn't so bad no matter how much I enjoy it. If it ends as is, It's a happier ending than Sam Lowery's in Brazil anyway. He did escape in a way......

Only criticism I have is the show seemed to run short on story in the second season and the plot advances for about 5 minutes of the time in some 50 minute long episodes. Those episodes are more about past events and character development. There's three of them in the second season. Good for atmosphere, short on advancing the narrative

Something kind of goofy is seeing alot of 80s technology mixing with things still 40 years to come and not even invented yet by comparison. People drive 80s cars, use tapedecks, etc but there's cellphones, electric locking doors opened with keycards instead of keys, brain implants, etc.

Recommended for fans of psychological thrillers. It is well done and yes shows like this can wear out their welcome if they run too long but this one hasn't yet.

Big Sur is the end of Kerouac's literary journey which he called the Legend of the Duluoz. Sure he wrote more novels but he never chronicled his life beyond Big Sur and if you read the book, you'd understand why. Kerouac, a free spirit by the time of this book, was around 36 and popular. He lost the freedom he celebrated in his work to celebrity. He found he had less and less in common with his friends and the alcohol started to flow and really take it's toll on his body. I read Big Sur when I was 16. I was struck by how his disillusionment grew when he was surrounded by people and how freeing and peaceful it was when he was alone in the cabin on Big Sur. Kerouac wrote in a descriptive whirlwind when the nightmarish DTs struck. It was night and day how life was for him and he crafted a brilliant literary work chronicling this. I am always disappointed when I see someone else's vision of how they interpret books I like. Maybe I have a vivid imagination and am bringing these images to life in my mind better than what is shown to me on a screen. Never liked any screen adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Not many directors as good at their craft as F Scott Fitzgerald was at his.

Maybe it's not fair to complain about the attempt so much. Big Sur is a difficult novel to bring to life for anyone. The book is the closest Kerouac ever came to something like William Burroughs' Naked Lunch. The surreal horrific terrors he experienced from his alcoholism are descriptive and not brought to life well in this movie.

It's also a dour story and frankly, it makes for a great book but not a movie where you expect three acts. The novel itself doesn't really have that. It's just a stage in Kerouac's life. He carries on when it's over and his descent simply continues....