Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep in 2049?

After reading the Blade Runner book and watching the Blade Runner 2049 movie, I realised how much better the movie would have been if they took all the parts that weren’t used in the original movie and used them for the sequel movie. Things like the faux-police headquarters where all the cops are androids who think they’re human. The human blade runner working for the android police who starts to think he’s an android. The meaning of owning a synthetic pet in a dying world. And more, but those three points are a good start to improve the plot of the BR sequel. What may have been.

The Cyberpunk Collection

When you’re locked down, the perfect late night genre to find solace in is Science Fiction’s dazzling young son, Cyberpunk.

In it, you will find dystopic futures where cybernetic, mutagenic, nightmarish low-lifes with high-tech fantasies are enthralled in the oncoming breakdown of a city’s social order.

The heroes are either cops or crims and usually possess or are in search of the key to unknowingly unlocking a more dangerous and promising chapter for the world around them.

Cyberpunk can be Film Noir with technology (Tech Noir), a police procedral with cyberised mecha or a crime drama with pretty much everything sci-fi.

To help you dive into the cyberpunk experience, I present to you this list:

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V is for…

The National Security team just barged through the door, looking for a doctor. They in’s the man in a lock room, wearing handcuffs, and they put a black hood over his head. All this doctor can think about is his son, who he saved from his step-mother, a young blonde who was infected with a prehistoric virus that turned her into a vampire.

Arriving at an abandoned warehouse, National Security agents take the hood off of the doctor’s head before escorting him to a dusty locker room. They ask the doctor to help them with what they want. He wants to know where is his son.

For a Netflix show, V Wars is pretty good. The story can be up and down when the plot follows the side characters, but it overall comes together as one of the better sci-fi horror shows. 3/5 vulpas.

Invisible Man

The Invisible Man is an excellent modern day Universal Monster movie that uses our cinematic conditioning to build tension from start to finish. Quite an impressive feat and one that tells a serious domestic abuse story through the lens and conventions of horror. A top performance from Elizabeth Moss and an insanely cool and scary Invisible Man – especially with how he turns invisible – though he is one proper evil bastard.

Hell buoyed

How is the latest Hellboy movie so badly written and directed in an age where comic book movies are the norm? It’s rife with redundant characters, useless motives, tenuous relationships to the main character that serve no narrative purpose, bad acting, moronic Pixar monsters in a film that’s R-rated and a terrible ending. It’s a shame, the comics are actually well written, like modern day Poe built on a foundation of Lovecraft and American folklore. They’re a celebration of classic horror and weird fiction with a biblical narrative trajectory. And yet none of that comes through in this new movie. None of the beauty, none of the pathos of it’s characters, none of the gothic charm, none of the cool stuff. Del Toro should have returned. To hell with it.

There is more than one Parasite

Like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels but on caffeine and whiskey, Parasite is a genuinely funny film with a bittersweet flavour, engaging characters from either side of the tracks, a nice little twist and that’s that.

Outsiders and other creepy things

The boogeyman continues to freak people out on The Outsider. He comes in like a dream, “it” comes in like a dream. In through the dark, blurry in the corners, out of reach, dressed like a man. It has come from a cold place, mouldy and filled with cobwebs. It wants to be left alone to its own devices, urges. It follows, even into the light, say it’s name thrice while looking in a mirror and run, run, run through the trees. Split up with your friends. It is already in front.

1917

A journey of doomed youth into no man’s land and regions of enemy occupied territories, after many battles had been fought; desolated lands and obliterated communities, enough to drive any man to tears, but not before the mission is done, not before the journey has ended; across trenches and rivers, muddy roads and dilapidated townships, torn apart by mortar fire, the large guns, their large shells; hope comes with a bundled surprise, but it does not dissuade our boys from their duties; toward the singing flame we go, with or without encouragement and always with the news that this damn battle need not be lost; the cries of brothers in chorus; the laughter of men; there will be no need for medals, tin and ribbon, just a letter to his mother, written with trembling fingers; they tell her he was a good man.

The nighttime watch ticks on

Is it wrong to say, Joker was funnier the second time around? All those wrong things were good for a chuckle.

What’s not funny is how the Red Cross is keeping $11 million from the world’s donations – for the bushfire crisis here in Australia – for what they’re calling administration fees. And the victims continue to wait for much more of the donation money to be distributed. They keep 91 cents of every dollar donated. Criminal.

The world calls out for a simpler time, where we’re all far from the madding crowd, the four horsemen are nowhere to be seen over the horizon, and the sounds of harmony come from all directions as if an innocent young lad had just pulled a sword from a stone.