The Amazing Spider Man 2 - not much amazing about it.

There are several depressing things going on in the wurlde right now. Ergo, I feel it is appropriate to put my thoughts on "The Amazing Spiderman 2" down. I saw this travesty at the dollar theatre recently. I am sorry that I shelled out the extra dough for the 3D version. Which was awful. This film is a prime example of the horrible misuse of post processing 3D which adds nothing but nausea and headaches to most viewers. I should have done my due diligence. If you are going to see a Peter Jackson film, yes then by all means pay extra for 3D - they have actually used dual lens cameras. Shite like this... no. Most people just cannot make that 3D magic come alive with software. Not unless your name is Alfonso Cuarón.

Ok, so on to the actual film. Garfield and Stone have a good deal of on screen charm and whatnot. And Loki knows, almost any screen pairing is superior to the horrible emo mess that was Maguire and Dunst. So this movie should have, well.. worked. But it didn't. For many a reason. But before I tell you what went wrong, let me tell you what they got right. The casting of Paul Giamatti as a crazed Russki mobster who is hijacking a truck with a load of Plutonium driven through the streets of NY, because where else would you drive a truck full of plutonium? Spidey intervenes, but alas is too late to hear Emma Stone's valedictorian speech about YOLO.

Some of the problems in this movie stem from the Spiderman universe itself. And that is clearly Stan Lee's fault. For instance:

1. Spidey only functions in NY. Relocate him to Kansas. Heck, move him to a major metro area which doesn't have the stupidly high density of skyscrapers that NYC has - such as Orlando - and he is boned. Without them tall buildings to swoop around, the playing field is .. shall we say.. leveled?
2. How come he only gets the cool superpowers like strength and web? Why not the aversion to light and the propensity to eat moths? Just askin'

In this specific film, notice how the plot advances because OSHA ain't really a thing. Jamie Foxx (carries a hot mancrush on Spidey/Garfield and works under the cruel thumb of BJ Novak - the cast writes its own jokes)  wants some bloke to shut off some part of the electrical grid (built by OSCORP) 'cos after hours maintenance (ordered by Novak). Said bloke refuses, citing "after hours". Foxx goes ahead anyway, fries himself and falls into a tank full of electric eels which was placed carefully under the station where he was carrying out repairs. It is strongly implied that he was face-banged by at least one eel. Naturally, he turns into a living battery who now perceives the world as a flow of colourful electrons, because fuck biophysics. After this terrible accident, instead of seeking out a capable personal injury lawyer and suing the pants off OSCORP, Foxx heads to Times Square to scare the tourists and look at the pretty lights because Mommy never paid any attention to him and he has never felt the soft embrace of a woman (or Spiderman). Violence results. A dubsteppy soundtrack is revealed in its glory. Foxx is locked away in the Ravencroft Institute (for the Criminally Insane). Just kidding, the Criminally Insane are the doctors who have graduated from evil medical school and their job references are signed by Josef Mengele.

There is a subplot where Stone decides to go to Oxford because being hot + fake British accent = guaranteed Academy Award sooner or later. Garfield disagrees, but then comes around because modern man bleeds estrogen. Also a puny kid is being beaten up because his third grade project involves a windmill and as we all know, the Koch brothers love Big Oil and employ fifth grade bullies to hunt down and destroy all budding Elon Musks.

Meanwhile Little Osborne (old friend of Peter Parker) is back from being rich and idle. He is now rich and diseased, suffering from early onset forwardtheplotitis. The only thing which can save him is a vial of Spidey's blood. Which is not available because eeew! Peter Parker hates needles. Corporate shenanigans. Lil' Osborne is deposed from CEO-ship, and in revenge frees Foxx - and they go out on a nice romantic rampage. Unfortunately, Lil' Osborne's disease progresses very fast and he injects himself with some leftover spider venom which was stored in the basement. This turns him into a monster(specifically, the Green Goblin) to nobody's surprise. He then dons an experimental mecha-battlesuit which Congress funded because someone stuck an addendum to the F-35 project and who cares about an extra 10 billion bucks here or there? This battlesuit is able to instantly treat his debilitating disease, but does nothing to cure his psychopathy or his Goblinness.

  Foxx and Spidey must now have a showdown in the huge power station which is a number of vertical pillars and two operators. Thankfully, there is no nuclear reactor, or hydroelectric dam or gas/coal fired furnace. Fighting. Spidey gets his lycra-ed arse kicked. Stone turns up and drives her Crown Vic straight into Foxx. She then turns the power back on for the entire city - which is only possible since she was a summer intern at Oscorpower. Seriously, that is what they call it. Anyway, since this is a superhero movie, there are no boffins, only buff people. We shoulda had Stone at Fukushima.

The dubstep reaches a crescendo. Foxx is killed because mumble-mumble-garbled-physics. The day is saved! However, Green Goblin/Lil' Osborne turns up in his jet powered sled. More fighting. Emma Stone dies. Spidey is sad. Spends all his weekends at her grave. Then  Paul Giamatti comes back, dressed in a metal rhino shaped mechsuit. Spidey steps up. There will prolly be a sequel.

Deep in the Kuiper Belt
Rocks chasing the darkness
A frozen coffin floats

A hamster wheel for cats

Apparently this is a Kickstarter. 

Now connect this to an alternator and let your cat earn its keep by powering your cellphones. There - that is my contribution. Now let the royalties flow in.

Not ranting..

Not ranting. Just unhappy and expressing this unhappiness.

Tribalism. That is the way I see it. Most of our common law is originally derived from customs-hardened-into-law through centuries. Customs which grew from and in small tribal communities, often warring with one another. Customs, which at one point were necessary for tribal survival. Customs which have transited into religion. It is not a coincidence that most extant religions have an elderly bearded man as the entity on top - because that is what it was, and is, in most villages.

The sad and honest truth of it is that while we have progressed enormously in technology and society is immeasurably larger than the lawmakers of a two millenia ago could imagine - our minds and our values are still stuck in the village. The social inertia of getting people to change their minds - to value female children as much as males - is immense. 

Every so often we hear of some horrific rape from the subcontinent. There is the expected outpouring of sympathy for the hapless victim, outrage and hand wringing and then.. nothing. Things are back to normal. Educated, well off Indians living in big cities both in India, as well as abroad go about their business. When they are expecting a child, they fervently wish for it to be a boy. And the cycle continues. Until people rewire their own heads and try to be a somewhat better human beings than their great grandfathers were - nothing will change.

The hearing.

The hearing chamber was incongruity itself.​ The walls were depression inducing grey brushed concrete. Old, like 1970s government-cheerful. But then there was the committee box. It floated above the floor of the house. Floated in quite the literal sense. Wasn't suspended, just floated. Rows of seating radiated outward from the well of the chamber. Today, those rows were almost entirely unoccupied. Larkin was pushed gently/firmly into the witness box. A voice sounded in his head "if it makes you comfortable, you may disrobe". Fuck. His throat went dry. "Do not worry, you will be safe". He looked down at the enviro-readout. 295K/70%N2/28%O2/1.8%CO2/0.2%trace/backgroundradiation-below det-lim.He held his breath and cracked the seal on the helmet bubble. With not much more than sheer willpower, he breathed in normally. And was fine. "Yes, you are safe here". That voice again. How? It is one thing to snatch a frequency out of the ether. Quite another to crack a somewhat hard-encryption (many, many digit primes - we are talking). Finally, it was quite insane that the decrypted signal would be read back by his suit AI as perfectly idiomatic English. That was what screwed him over entirely. The thin thread tying him to sanity, what kept him from turning into a gibbering fool was his pride. He was, after all, the scientific commander of the ISS2. He had already crammed  a whole lifetime of research into his 40 years.

Larkin looked up. Steadied himself. "Who are you? Where am I?" he asked. He hoped his voice did not quaver. It did. The ... entity seated in the middle of the committee box (why did he think of it as that?) looked straight at him. That voice spoke "You are an envoy; plenipotentiary of your people. You will provide witness." Someone, or something, had suborned the suit AI completely. Normally, the suit spoke constantly to Larkin - now it was completely silent, except when relaying the messages from... those things.

His mind was dithering. He forced himself to look at the committee box. The speaker was humanoid, with a liberal definition. "Witness for what?" he asked. "Your planet is scheduled for demolition.  A new hyperspace conduit is being built. Eminent domain and so on". Larkin gasped. "What? Why?.." The entity raised a limb. "It is necessary. Development. Bring growth to your sector. Jobs, even." "But.." Larkin moaned. "But demolition necessary. However, we are not thoughtless. Even if you have not developed space travel, you may testify. At this hearing, you may tell us, and the press - why your planet may be relocated and not destroyed. Relocation is very expensive. So you must justify.". Larkin's head spun. He turned to the "press box". Which was now occupied by a quartet of overgrown geckos. At least, they looked like geckos, although they were all smoking furiously.

He took a deep breath. Then another ten of the same. He started speaking. Larkin had never thought of himself as an orator. But here and now, he was Wordsworth wrapped in Churchill with the humility of Gandhi. He spoke of all that was beautiful on Earth, of how humanity had barely begun to take on the role of a benevolent steward of the planet, of how we were healing ecosystems, and just starting to explore Sol system. He spoke for what seemed like hours. When his throat parched up, he sipped water from the suit straw. Until finally, he was done. Haggard, he looked up at the bench. The thing, those things... were .. smiling? He whispered  heartfelt prayer of thanks.

Then, suddenly, one of the (commissioners?) at the end of the bench spoke up. "And what of this?" He held out something. Larkin strained to see what it was. One of the journo-geckos stepped forward and screwed a monocle into his eye and peered closely at the device. The wall behind him suddenly turned into a giant screen. Larkin looked up. The device was clearly a late model iPheun. It was running some sort of a game-app. The app was a Kardashian simulator-game. Be a celeb in the tiny pixelated pretend-world. Run around "shopping" in V-space. Larkin felt his legs turn into jelly. The committee looked at him. There were no smiles now. The AI spoke -  "Earth demolition to proceed forthwith. Relocation request denied."

Insider Jokes

Our hero goes to the window-wall and looks out. The city lies beneath him, all aglitter. It reminds him of a living thing, this huge conurbation. Its millions of inhabitants like the busy cells of a body, moving hither and tither about their business. Their interactions, their loves, their squabbles - the everyday life of a gigantic superentity. And yet, like an organic body depended on oxygen being supplied to every organ, this immense city also lived through its great streets - those huge arterial thoroughfares. And just as the body has a brain, the core of this city lived in the sprawling, protected complex of CarMax. Bejewelled with a million floodlights, this watchful sentinel stood guard over the city and her people.

Behind him, the dusky beauty stirred under the covers. 'Can't sleep honey?' she asked. He turned around and said 'I'll be back in a moment'. Then, the unthinkable happened. The lights started going out. Street by street, block by block, the city plunged into darkness. His breath caught in his throat. He felt the long forgotten tightening of his chest. Far in the distance, he saw the lights of CarMax itself grow dim. 'No!' he whispered. That bilious taste in his mouth was that old familiar fear.

And then, a searchlight speared out of the darkness and reached for the clouds. The oval in the the sky shone for just a few moments before it, too, was extinguished. But he saw the silhouette etched in sharp relief. His name. DeMuro. He turned back. When he spoke, his voice was rock steady. 'Stay here. You will be safe. I have to leave - there is work to be done.'

About Hunting

My 0.02$. ​Of the 5 animals commonly known as the Big-Five Game in Africa, only the Cape buffalo has a sufficiently large population to be classified as 'least threatened'. The African lion and the bush elephant are classified as 'vulnerable', the leopard and white rhino as 'near threatened' and the black rhino as 'critically endangered'. Hunting these animals(apart from the Cape buffalo) for sport is irresponsible and avaricious in the extreme. While all animals and plants play their role in the ecosystem and the extinction of even one is an irreparable loss - there is something else to consider. These animals, charismatic megafauna if you will - live in the memories, songs and oral traditions of a thousand cultures. The day the last rhino dies (and let us hope that never happens), the wild will have lost something majestic and beautiful. We shall all be the poorer for this.

So what can you do to help? Donate money to a suitable charity. Big game parks sell hunting licenses. Perhaps you could donate to the park itself, to the amount of a license - and then not actually go through with the hunt. You could also raise awareness. Countries in SE Asia are the main market for rhino horns and elephant tusks. Do what you can to dispell myths of virility enhancing rhino horn powder and suchlike.

Back to hunting for a moment. I don't consider hunting in itself to be immoral. But please consider your options. If sharpshooting is your thing, then why not hone your skill at the range? If you enjoy the outdoors life and the thrill of the stalk, then have you considered nature photography. And finally, if you wish to hunt and nothing else with satiate you, then why not hunt an animal that is widespread, and whose numbers might need to be culled from time to time? Deer, for instance. Hunting endangered big game may certainly earn you bragging rights, but it is not the right thing to do. And since many people tend to believe in a higher power, let me put my last argument out there: if/when you are being judged by the higher being you believe in - what will your explanation be for killing that rhino? "Because I felt like it"?