It's finally Spring, and that means, Winter has finally come to WinterFell. But before I get to the final season of Game of Thrones, I'm going to review a Netflix movie! It's called The Silence, and since Netflix doesn't allow people to review their movies on the website anymore, I'm just going to do it here. I've also changed my blog theme to a more summer-y view for both your and my viewing pleasure.
The Silence (2019) is a movie about a heretofore unknown species of flying predator that breaks out of a newly-discovered cave system in Pennsylvania and proceeds to eat the entire world. They hunt by sound, so you have to be quiet. Shh!
Sorry, that's a crappy synopsis, but it's been a while since I reviewed a good movie, and this movie sucks. Let me begin with the critters. Spoilers to follow, but ugh, don't even bother watching the movie on Netflix. First, the critters are completely blind, and hunt by sound, much like bats, but without using echolocation, as far as I can tell. Since they seem to eat everything they hear, or try to, there's no possible way the species could have survived by themselves underground. It might be one thing if there had been a whole ecosystem down in that cave system, a huge food supply these things could have lived off of, but there wasn't. Since the flying things seem to eat everything that makes a noise, they'd have eaten themselves to death thousands of years ago, dying of old age or starvation after eating every other source of food. There wouldn't be any left. Also, there are insane numbers of these things. Where did they all come from? It might be one thing if a few escaped, and without their usual predators to keep them in check, they multiplied out of control and became another invasive species, but we get invasive species all the time. Sooner or later, something evolves to eat them. Plus, the critters are always screeching and making tons of noise. They'd have attacked each other, or thrown themsevles to death into fires or wood chippers or thunderstorms or whatever else was making noise. Since these noise sources are used in the movie to kill some of the creatures, why does it not work on all of them? It makes no logical sense. There are literally millions of noise sources in the world out there, and the average human is very quiet by comparison.
The second thing I'd like to mention, the cult of humans worshipping them or the religious nutjobs who think they were sent from heaven or whatever, I mean, that's just ridiculous. First, cutting out your tongue doesn't stop you from making noise. It really doesn't. It stops you from forming certain sounds with your tongue, and as I understand it, also makes you bleed like crazy. I'm pretty sure the first idiot who cut out his tongue to try and silence himself would have been the last, because if he didn't die from it, the next person would realize what a nutjob he was in the first place. Also, wtf is with humans who decide that every single thing that happens in horror movies is the best thing that ever happened to them? Where are these people who are just living out their boring little lives and suddenly some geological event or virus sweeps the land and it's like a gift from god? Shit, if you're that bored, sign up to netflix and start watching movies ffs, or find a goddamned hobby!
Aside from those two ridiculous things, the movie wasn't even that good. There's like one scary part where they're all still in the minivan, and after that, it's all crappy bs. They can walk around fine on gravel roads without making a sound (I've walked on gravel before, it is not soundless), they can go through underbrush without making noise (what, no rustling leaves?), and seemingly every single noise they make is juuuuust quiet enough not to attract attention until they want it to. Come on! Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but at least try to be consistent. They've got some decent actors in this thing, who I'm not going to shame by naming them. There wasn't even a lot of action. There was one quick fight sequence at the end and it wasn't even against the monsters. I suppose it doesn't surprise me that I had to stop this movie halfway through because I just couldn't stand the boredom anymore, and then came back to it when I had time to kill a day later. It didn't get any better. To quote a movie trope, go on without me, save yourself the horror.
To summarize, The Silence (on Netflix) really sucked. Don't waste your time. Moving on.
Game of Thrones finally climaxed on Sunday night. After 10 years of foreplay or the longest orgasm in TV history (WINTER IS COMING!), Winter finally came to the aptly-named Winterfell. Spoilers to follow, because I really want to talk about it, and after three days, if you haven't seen it yet, you're not going to. First off, Theon died, which I was totally okay with. I never liked his character to start with. If I recall correctly, in the books (which GRRM will probably never finish), Theon became a priest for the drowned god or something, which he never did in the HBO version. That might have made the character more interesting. Hodor was more interesting, and he only had one line of dialogue (albeit repeated over and over). Theon didn't even die for a reason, but in a pointless charge at an enemy there was no way he could have defeated.
I read an online review of the battle itself, and some military guy savaged the tactics employed by Dany and Jon. He estimated there was three weeks between the fall of the Wall and the arrival of the White Walker army, and said there should have been a lot more done to prepare the battleground for the inevitable breach of the walls. I assume they had less than that amount of time to prepare, not only because the army of dead would have travelled night and day without stopping, but also because Winterfell was still taking in refugees up until a day or two before the white walkers arrived. Sure, they could have churned out tons of dragonglass weapons in that time, but digging up the ground around the castle would have been impossible with all the people coming in there, and they still would have needed room inside to house the refugees.
The military guy was spot-on about Dany and Jon's inexperience as generals causing them to employ bad battle tactics, but I don't understand why Jorah Mormont, Tyrion, or any of the dozen other battle-hardened and experienced commanders didn't offer better strategies. I mean, all of them have commanded men in battle, and even if Dany or Jon hadn't learned from all the battles they'd been in since the series began ten years ago, the group as a whole had half a dozen to a dozen experienced commanders handy to discuss battle strategy. In any case, the battle went badly for the side of the living, as you might have guessed.
So I'm watching the fight going on, and the first thing I am thinking is, well, this fight has to go badly for Winterfell, because Cersei's army is coming up from the south. Dragonglass isn't going to be any more effective agaisnt the gigantic army of the living coming up behind them, and there's not going to be anyone left to fight on, even if they win. I assumed the army of White Walkers was just going to roll over Winterfell, and then destroy Cersei's army, which might at least reduce the vast numbers of dead (or add to it, depending on how things went). At first, that seemed to be what was happening, because all the major characters seemed to be fighting for their lives and about to go down. So, I figured I was right. But nope, I was not right. Surprise!
I'm only going to mention one other death, because the only death in the episode that was particualrly brave and worthwhile, was Lyanna Mormont fighting the giant. And, I'm not even going to mention that there were dozens of giants fighting for the white walker the last time I saw a glimpse of his army, because there was apparently only one left for Lyanna to kill. So the giant knocks little lyanna aside, and she comes running back, and the giant just grabs her and lifts her up to look her in the eye as he crushes her to death in his hands, and she stabs him right in the eye with a dragonglass dagger. Epic! Kills the giant, and dies in the process. Heroic sacrifice! The stuff of legend! I loved it.
I'd always figured how things were actually going to end for the Night King, though, and this was demonstrated about 2/3rds through the episode when he walked towards the open gates of Winterfell. Jon comes up from behind him, hoping to engage him in battle. I can only guess that would have gone badly, though the battle would have been epic, but it never got that far. The problem with going warrior-to-warrior with the night king is that there's no way you can get close enough to do that, as the night king aptly demonstrated by resurrecting an army of the dead to surround him before Jon could even get close. Sure, Jon might have killed the Night king, but he was too worried about his own survival to try. That's the problem with fighters, they're great at defense, but not so good at killing. You need to be ready to die to get close enough for a kill shot, and that's where Arya comes in. Arya's assassination was so damned awesome, even the faceless men should be honroing her instead of hunting her.
I'm not going to reduce the actual confrontation between Arya and the Night king to words, because it was just so simply awesome I don't think I can give it proper credit. I will say that I thought Bran should have, I don't know, smiled or something, just before Arya struck, enough to give the night king a better reason to think Arya was coming. I also think Bran should have at least thanked Arya afterwards, because, sure, maybe he did see the whole thing coming, but he's still partially Bran, and Arya is still partially his sister. A little knowing smile from Bran would have made it so much more awesome beforehand, and a thank you would have been expected afterwards. Damn it Bran, show a little more life, so I can actually like your character, ffs! Maybe that'll happen next episode. In any case, Winterfell seems so aptly-named at this point. Now, how the heck are the few surviving people going to handle Cersei's army? I'm worried Bran will try making a new White Walker to replace the old one, because that's how the indiginous folk fought off the First Men to begin with. Don't do it, Bran! You might know how, but you also know it was a mistake in the first place.
Okay, three more episodes of Game of Thrones to go, and I doubt I'll watch any of the spinoffs that I've heard are coming down the pipe from HBO. I'm tired of waiting years to see a few episodes here and there. None of us are getting any younger, and I might die of old age before I get to the ends of those series. Shit, this one took almost ten years, ffs. I was just past 40 when I started watching it, and now I'm pushing 50. Who the hell has that kind of time to wait around for a series to finish production? If this trend keeps up, whole generations of people could come and go before the next series reaches the epic finale.
And why does it take so long for anything worthwhile to happen in life? I been waiting 15 years for Minecraft to add frogs and toads, and I'll probably die before that happens, too. I should talk, right? It's taken me three months just to post to my blog. Ugh. Life, amirite? At least you won't get any Avengers: Endgame spoilers from me. I haven't even seen it yet, and probably won't until it comes to the premium channels. Until next time, people! Hopefully sooner than 3 months. :-)
PS: Oh, speaking of assassins, I wanted to mention Barry. It's also on HBO, about an assassin who gets tired of killing, and tries to become an actor. Sure, it's been done before (I think? usually I only watch monster movies), but I like Barry because of the supporting cast and the wacky things that happen to him. Henry Winkler (The Fonz!) is Barry's acting coach (as Gene Cousineau or whatveer his name is)! Sunday's episode (right after game of thrones) had Barry trying to talk some guy he was supposed to kill, into leaving the area for about a year. Things seemed to be going fine, but then we find out that Barry's target is actually a tae-kwon-do master. Barry gets his ass kicked (mostly because he is doing his best not to kill this guy), and barely survives the episode. The episode was kind of wacky, but pretty funny, and I enjoyed it.
I read in an interview with bill hader (who plays barry) that the tae-kwon-do guy was supposed to be some overweight, chubby older guy who didn't look anything like a tae kwon do master. I actually saw a guy like that once. I was going to watch a jiu-jitsu class (my friend was a student, and I was thinking of joining the class), and right before the class started, there was this chubby bearded guy with glasses who sat down on the mat across from where the jiu-jitsu class was going to begin. I remember thinking "Man, this guy must be a new student, because he looks ridiculously out of shape! If he can learn Tae Kwon Do, I shouldn't have any trouble with Jiu Jitsu!" So, the guy stretches out a little bit, and then proceeds to leap into the air like a ninja, doing a series of high-flying kicks that would have made John Claude van Damme green with envy. I was all like WHAT THE EFFING EFF! :-o I find out later that the chubby guy is actually the Tae Kwon Do instructor. Crazy shit. Apparently, Bill Hader coudln't find somebody like that, and got Daniel Bernhardt instead. I guess most people who take active martial arts like Tae Kwon Do are actually in great shape. Who'd a thunk it? :-/
No comments:
Post a Comment