DAMIEN RILEY, world musician and performer

Category: Uncategorized

  • Ex Machina

    ex_machinaI don’t know if it is my advancing age or the inclusion of several laborious scenes set to synthesized music but I nodded off twice during the film. I did like it though, it certainly took an original spin on an age old robot theme. This film dispenses with the question of whether we can create AI. Instead it looks at what AI may think of us after having been created. Then yet another question arises: will AI agree to the station we assign it? Ex Machina is a very slow movie but it is clever and interesting if you are rested, at least I am sure it would be. It raises ethical questions about the manufacture of model-figured women who are not human but created to serve. I couldn’t help but recall the Stepford Wives.

    There isn’t an original theme but the directorial choices are peppered with new stuff. The special effects are captivating. There are some jabs at Google and the collection of information. The maker says he was able to secure millions of cell phone data banks because the providers steal it and he threatened to expose them unless they shared. This was far fetched in my opinion but an interesting wake up call that Google and cell phone companies probably have far too much on us. Google execs and programmers are the new Howard Hugheses (plural sp?). In this film they are very scary, almost to smart for their own good. What’s more, they’re making female robots, often fully naked on screen, that are devoid of morals. This could be interesting for some. For laborious scenes and general lack of original theme, it lost 2 stars from me.

  • The One I Love

    This movie was on every banner before my eyes every time I’d log on to IMDB, Netflix, Rotten Tomatoes, or movie phone. Clearly the gods of matching meta data were in its favor. Every time I clicked on it I just saw a boring, wanna be romance that said in the synopsis it was about a couple at the end of their marriage trying to rekindle things. It just didn’t excite me but I kept it on my list just in case nothing else was on. I highly recommend not giving up on movies because this one ended up being the opposite of boring. It is indeed about a failing relationship but the steps they take to make it better are partly science fiction. That’s right, I said that genre. It’s sort of a Twilight Zone meets a couple in therapy. I know my wife and I related with some of the humor and the sci fi. More than anything, it got me thinking about the many sides to our partner and how we can fall in love with one and not the other. In the end, which will we choose to live with? More importantly, which will we not.

    I like Mark Duplass a lot. He has that “older guy” feeling to him in this. Ironically, he is 8 years younger than me. I won’t get too into it but you see a lot of aspects of his character. He was a bit over the top for my taste in My Sister’s Sister. In this one he has calmed down a lot and delivers a more mature, soulful performance. Elizabeth Moss was a perfect casting choice as the wife. I’ve respected and enjoyed her work since Girl Interrupted and she continues to please in this. One more character I enjoyed seeing, though it’s a small role, was Ted Danson as the therapist. Great to see him in a movie! If you’re in a relationship and you’re looking for a date movie, this would be an excellent choice. Couples who are more long term may enjoy it more as it covers some of the issues that tend to appear only after the honeymoon phase has passed. This was a breath of fresh air combing romantic comedy with sci fi. I’m reminded of The Time Traveler’s Wife, The Adjustment Bureau, and About Time so it’s not a new seasoning. In this case, it’s more subtle than the ones I mentioned but it really made the message of the film more attractive and easily heard. The end is another twist after the main twist. I loved it.

  • Gave So Much to This Wonderful Life

    I’ve been thinking in recent years about what people say when someone dies. When Dr. Seuss died I heard many people say, “He gave so much to the world.” I never thought of art as giving. In a way, for me, it’s more like taking. When I write a song or write a blog post I feel like I am getting something. When you think about it however, art by its very nature involves a receiver and therefore is a giving act. When you give, you make a splash in the lake of existence. I imagine all my art as a pebble thrown into a still lake. As it ripples out I hope it touches someone and they are moved to do something artistic as well. I don’t get many comments on my blog lately but I have received thankful ones in the past saying the post really helped them in some way. There go the ripples.

    It’s Christmas eve and we tried something new this year. We saw the local Cinemark was playing It’s a Wonderful Life so we took our three kids to the afternoon showing. Seeing those vintage actors playing in such an amazing film was inspiring to me. I thought about how all the actors gave so much to the world in that movie. The producer, director and everyone involved with the film gave their all. I think of the amazing acting from the actor who paid Mr. Potter and the “special effects” crew that threw soap shavings in the scenes where there was snow. The movie gives to this day while the humans involved in it are all but dead now. Jimmy Stewart indeed left so much behind for us. Sometimes I look at the way I spend my time and I think it doesn’t matter what I leave behind, because I’ll be gone. Other times I think about the next generations and what my life’s work will mean to them. Christmas, I think, is a great time to meditate on that.

  • Interstellar

    I wasn’t pleased with this one but it didn’t suck either. It might be argued the director’s goals were too interstellar. Let me say that my review here is short and does not include much that would spoil the movie plot. I tried to not give anything big away, but I digress. Like many people I was duped by the advertising into thinking it was the next “Gravity.” I guess that’s because they show space and space-suits in the commercials. It’s more akin to Contact, another space movie that also starred Matthew McConaughey. Contact, however, was based more in spirituality and emotion than space and realism. I liked Gravity for its realism so I was a bit disappointed.

    My wife made a great point early on in the film when she said it reminded her of the M. Night Shyamalan film Signs. It is a lot like Signs with the effects of Gravity and the odd surrealism of Contact. Having said that, I must make it clear it is FAR too long. The best part is the relationship with the daughter and her father. He leaves her to go to space and find a new habitation for earthlings and regrets it. I won’t say anymore than that. I give it 3/5 stars. It is a great story, though again too long, with amazing effects and some quantum physics hypotheticals thrown in there in such a way as suggests “just cuz.” I think it tries to do too much but many audiences will like it because of the touching story between the daughter and father. It had me choked up more than once. Ok. That’s more than I knew going into into it so I’ll stop now. Go see it, it’s a fun intellectual ride, though not the Gravity type of space movie some may hope to see. You may see it differently, let me know in the comments won’t you?

  • Mr. Peabody & Sherman – 4/5 stars

    Anyone from Generation X (my generation I should add) is likely to remember Rocky and Bullwinkle on television where you’d hear Bullwinkle open by saying “Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.” That was the show we watched when our homework was done or after soccer games on Saturday. In the deeper recesses of our pop cultural memory, you find the sub-show inside that was the original Mr. Peabody & Sherman. It was sarcastic yet subdued. Perhaps the time gave it an air of university, peace, and love. Rod Serling? Beatniks? I don’t relly know how to explain it. The era was indefinable. In the show, the ingenious Mr. Peabody has “a boy,” the inverse of a boy having a dog. Yes, Mr. Peabody is a dog but he’s also a history buff, a professor, and a time traveler. This dog got it goin’ on! Still, you never get the impression that Mr. Peabody “loves” Sherman as his son. Trust me, I watched a bunch of old episodes on Youtube this morning and you don’t. Then there’s the new film. A somewhat different animal.

    The film Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014) creates the duo well and we are given much adventure in the process. Unfortunately, for this viewer who came with high hopes, it fails to recreate the cult feel of the 1959 animated shorts. It’s sort of like that but set to Jimmy Neutron styled animation. They also make a huge deal out of Sherman being his “son.” This gets odd, even for me an adoptive father. I think they took that “new” slant on the time traveling story and made it the bedrock of the movie, It should never have been added. The feel of the old cartoons was enough to build without additions. Still, the animation is incredible. The kids of today will also get some historical references they may have not heard in their short lives. I took all three of my kids and they seemed to enjoy it beginning to end. For me as their dad, that says a lot about how I will rate a family movie. 4/5 Stars.

  • Riddick

    I saw Riddick today with my son and I must say: it rocked! It had all the fun elements of the first movie, Pitch Black, with less of the boring things that slowed The Chronicles of Riddick down last time (the second in the series). When the second film didn’t fare well in movies, many people probably thought that was the end for Vin Diesel’s Riddick character. To their surprise, it set records on DVD viewing and a third movie happened as a result.

    The first half of the movie is full of cgi creatures and Riddick kicking ass. He is in survival mode and as a viewer you don’t just watch him, you feel you are among the action. He develops a friendship with a hyena-like pup that is truly touching, especially in the end when the pup is grown. We learn how smart Riddick is in this half. Some might argue this survival segment is too long but I was entertained the whole way through. Fans of special effects and action suspense will love this segment even if Riddick is the only actor we encounter here.

    The second half brings us back to what we are familiar with: Riddick being pursued (unsuccessfully) by a group of people. Riddick of course evades the bounty hunter (who is killed in an especially grotesque yet original way) and the military hunters who prove no match for the survivalist Riddick. There are some scenes that lag in the second half which is why I didn’t give it a perfect Riddick 5/5. Some character development could have been better and the villain wasn’t a very good actor. Ironically, the less characters there were in the story, the stronger it was for me.

    This movie is full of gadgets, weaponry, and creatures. In addition, we get Riddick at his best kicking ass and taking no prisoners. I wouldn’t blame the franchise if they made another. I’m a solid Riddick fan after this third installment.