I will follow my usual procedure here - a fully spoiler-free 1-bit review, then a mostly spoiler-free short review to determine if you should see it, then a fully detailed spoiler-filled analysis. Fully Spoiler-Free 1-Bit Review - Should You See Megan In Theaters, Yes or No?
Did? Something like 5-10. Should? Depends how much info one has. With perfect info without spoilers (hard to do!) I think one sees a lot more than that - eliminating the duds is a big game.
The one bit, for something that has no 'value' outside of entertainment, is saying something like it deserves a Metacritic of 75+.
I'm a biologist. I love John Carpenter's The Thing. What little biology is shown is largely implausible, and the movie doesn't exactly make the rules clear, but that's not what's important. The movie is about paranoia and freaky practical effects, and it succeeds on those terms.
I'm not (strictly) a virologist, but Contagion was excellent and was largely scientifically accurate. A lot of people critiqued the scene where the protein structure was solved rapidly, but in the real world there was a similar timeline with SARS-CoV2 so Soderbergh gets a lot of points for prescience.
Then you may be interested in Peter Watts' (marine biologists and science fiction writer) take on it. His short "The Things" is a retelling of Carpenter's The Thing... from the point of view of the thing. Several trigger warnings. Link to Watts's shorts: https://rifters.com/real/shorts.htm
"The timescale settled down on me like the weight of a world: how long for all that ice to accumulate? How many eons had the universe iterated on without me? And in all that time, a million years perhaps, there’d been no rescue. I never found myself. I wonder what that means. I wonder if I even exist any more, anywhere but here."
Haven't thought about it in detail. There are only 6 verified tier 1 TV shows (there are probably about 2-4 others out there). For movies I think it's far more reasonable to say "everyone needs to see this" so the question is where you start saying "No seriously you NEED to see this, this is canon."
My guess keeps changing from between 25 and 100 (and I'm sure there are a bunch that I haven't seen that belong there, as well).
From the imdb top 100, I'd definitely include (in their order, I've seen ~65 of them?): The Dark Knight, The Lord of the Rings (all), Fight Club, The Matrix, Casablanca, Memento, Into the Spider Verse, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Citizen Kane. Several others I'd consider reasonable choices.
OK queuing up "Eternal Sunshine..." , my top X, would have to include something by Frank Capra, and Alfred Hitchcock. (It's hard to pick just one.) (And then the Coen brothers.)
Truly, the shift from the actually-helpful 5-Star Netflix rating system to the unhelpfully binary "thumbs" system was the beginning of the decline. Also potentially an interesting case study on corporate Goodharting.
Thanks for this Zvi, a Friday afternoon well spent, and no way would I have gone to see this if I hadn't read your review!
Armed with your galaxy-brained take going in, I thought it was heartwarming, optimistic, moving and beautiful, and I haven't seen any major plot holes yet (It's been a good hour!)
In my sequel, Gemma becomes a wonderful mentor to Cady, and together they discover lots about physics and magic, have adventures, invent time travel, go back and fix everything, even saving the boy and the old lady and the dog. Cady also (montage) lives wonderful lives in a wide variety of other possible worlds, and eventually comes to fully understand the universe and the benevolent goddess that rules it.
Once Megan's happy with how Cady's turned out, and has seen enough of her to fully understand her coherent extrapolated volition, the two merge, and the combined being sets out to do whatever she can best do with her sphere of influence, and maybe even meet some new friends.
Your use of 'Race Conditions' made me realise how clever one of the first scenes in the movie was. The team is in the lab working on Megan, only to have the boss walk in on them before they are ready to show her off. Megan initially appears to work, but quickly starts malfunctioning. Gemma blames a 'race condition', and claims that she can fix it in an unrealistically small amount of time. It is then revealed that Megan is malfunctioning because they forgot to install something crucial. Megan's malfunction proceeds to blow up in all their faces. A simple microcosm of the entire movie!
Pre covid how many movies did you /should you have seen in theaters? Is the one bit review saying it's top 3, top ten, top fifty for the year?
Did? Something like 5-10. Should? Depends how much info one has. With perfect info without spoilers (hard to do!) I think one sees a lot more than that - eliminating the duds is a big game.
The one bit, for something that has no 'value' outside of entertainment, is saying something like it deserves a Metacritic of 75+.
This kind of makes me wonder what biologists think of movies like The Thing
edit: or at least like, maybe what virologists who are extremely concerned about xrisk think about movies like contagion
I'm a biologist. I love John Carpenter's The Thing. What little biology is shown is largely implausible, and the movie doesn't exactly make the rules clear, but that's not what's important. The movie is about paranoia and freaky practical effects, and it succeeds on those terms.
I'm not (strictly) a virologist, but Contagion was excellent and was largely scientifically accurate. A lot of people critiqued the scene where the protein structure was solved rapidly, but in the real world there was a similar timeline with SARS-CoV2 so Soderbergh gets a lot of points for prescience.
Then you may be interested in Peter Watts' (marine biologists and science fiction writer) take on it. His short "The Things" is a retelling of Carpenter's The Thing... from the point of view of the thing. Several trigger warnings. Link to Watts's shorts: https://rifters.com/real/shorts.htm
[SPOILER BELOW]
"The timescale settled down on me like the weight of a world: how long for all that ice to accumulate? How many eons had the universe iterated on without me? And in all that time, a million years perhaps, there’d been no rescue. I never found myself. I wonder what that means. I wonder if I even exist any more, anywhere but here."
Didn't expect feels.
What are your Tier 1 movies? Are there a lot?
Haven't thought about it in detail. There are only 6 verified tier 1 TV shows (there are probably about 2-4 others out there). For movies I think it's far more reasonable to say "everyone needs to see this" so the question is where you start saying "No seriously you NEED to see this, this is canon."
My guess keeps changing from between 25 and 100 (and I'm sure there are a bunch that I haven't seen that belong there, as well).
From the imdb top 100, I'd definitely include (in their order, I've seen ~65 of them?): The Dark Knight, The Lord of the Rings (all), Fight Club, The Matrix, Casablanca, Memento, Into the Spider Verse, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Citizen Kane. Several others I'd consider reasonable choices.
OK queuing up "Eternal Sunshine..." , my top X, would have to include something by Frank Capra, and Alfred Hitchcock. (It's hard to pick just one.) (And then the Coen brothers.)
Truly, the shift from the actually-helpful 5-Star Netflix rating system to the unhelpfully binary "thumbs" system was the beginning of the decline. Also potentially an interesting case study on corporate Goodharting.
Yes. Very under-appreciated point.
Thanks for this Zvi, a Friday afternoon well spent, and no way would I have gone to see this if I hadn't read your review!
Armed with your galaxy-brained take going in, I thought it was heartwarming, optimistic, moving and beautiful, and I haven't seen any major plot holes yet (It's been a good hour!)
In my sequel, Gemma becomes a wonderful mentor to Cady, and together they discover lots about physics and magic, have adventures, invent time travel, go back and fix everything, even saving the boy and the old lady and the dog. Cady also (montage) lives wonderful lives in a wide variety of other possible worlds, and eventually comes to fully understand the universe and the benevolent goddess that rules it.
Once Megan's happy with how Cady's turned out, and has seen enough of her to fully understand her coherent extrapolated volition, the two merge, and the combined being sets out to do whatever she can best do with her sphere of influence, and maybe even meet some new friends.
Your use of 'Race Conditions' made me realise how clever one of the first scenes in the movie was. The team is in the lab working on Megan, only to have the boss walk in on them before they are ready to show her off. Megan initially appears to work, but quickly starts malfunctioning. Gemma blames a 'race condition', and claims that she can fix it in an unrealistically small amount of time. It is then revealed that Megan is malfunctioning because they forgot to install something crucial. Megan's malfunction proceeds to blow up in all their faces. A simple microcosm of the entire movie!
So the AGI that will rule the world will be a minimum viable product. LOL