‘Beyond the Aquila Rift’ kind of blew me away. That’s probably my favorite thing I’ve seen—feature or short film, period—in a while. Alastair Reynolds was the MVP of this whole thing, because ‘Zima Blue’ was great too, in a totally different way. Just really cerebral, with interesting plot twists.”
Tag: movies
Deep Space 9 remastered
It took me 2 days to get everything extracted, upscaled and put it back together in a way that was pleasing. This resulted only in the first 5 minutes of the episode being done (the episode recap, the opening scene, and the intro). Still pretty good time for a mid-to-high end PC with software that isn’t just available to professionals. The result left me pretty awestruck. It looked better than I had hoped. No weird issues or anything. It looked pretty much like an HD version of DS9. Since (moving) pictures are worth more than 1000 words, here are 2 comparison videos that show off the improvement I was able to get with this machine learning based upscaling technique. Imagine what a real team could do, with more powerful equipment, custom trained neural networks … and access to the original SD files instead of a DVDRip like me.
Deadwood: The Movie
Swearengen: You ever think, Bullock, of not going straight at a thing? … Bullock: No.
The Wandering Earth
The movie is basically a retelling of some of the earlier parts of Genesis. The Chinese do in fact succeed in building the Tower of Babel, both physically and linguistically. They survive that which is analogous to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. They thwart the Noah’s Ark plan, reject the notion of their own intrinsic sinfulness, and save the remainder of humanity. It is the Chinese Christ figure who sacrifices himself to achieve the happy ending, thereby overturning what might be understood to be the will of God. By the end of the movie the Chinese can indeed “do anything.”
The Drone
A serial killer transfers his consciousness into a consumer drone right before he is killed, then flies off to terrorize newlyweds. The couple must fight to stop the insidious device before it destroys them both.
John Wick 3
John Wick is finally gonna kill some people in John Wick 3
Brainstorm
35 years ago, a fantastic movie came out that starred 4 Hollywood legends, 3 of whom were Oscar winners. It was directed by one of the most important and influential visual artists in film history, and the plot foretold the invention of virtual reality decades ahead of its time. The script was written as a showcase for a new technology designed to change the way we see movies. One of the Hollywood legends died before the movie was finished, a mysterious death, and this ended up being her last movie—And you’ve never heard of it.
Die Hard Christmas
Die Hard has become an unlikely holiday favorite so I guess they figured, hey, let’s put out a trailer that explicitly recasts the it as a Christmas film
Wobble Palace
A comedy that centers on the trials of try-hard millennials, Eugene and Jane are a couple in the death throes of their relationship. They see other people, but they haven’t broken up because neither wants to move out of the apartment they share in downtown Los Angeles — an art-freak crash pad with AstroTurf carpets and curtains printed to look like a crowded Windows desktop, complete with the ubiquitous grassy knoll. To satisfy their desire for time to themselves, they decide to split the apartment over a weekend. Eugene’s day comes first, and he begins it by swiping through Tinder on the toilet. It would be impossible to miss that Eugene is balding. Around the shiny dome of his forehead, his remaining hair passes his shoulders. By the time Eugene’s date appears for brunch, he has fashioned a hair piece that is as fantastic as it is foolhardy: He wraps his stringy fringe into a bun and fastens it above his bald spot. It’s a style he calls the “floating toupee.”
Gregor J. Rothfuss 