A Strange New Barbenheimer Film Grain

Stumbled upon this Jason Kottke's "media diet" post and thought I'd experiment with doing something similar.

I’ve never aspired to be a movie/book/game reviewer — don't have it in me to write long, analytic reviews. But sharing topline thoughts about works of culture/art I've recently seen/watched/read sounds like something I could enjoy doing. It also serves my own benefit – I often find myself forgetting how I felt/what I thought about certain movie, TV show, book, or whatever. Putting my opinions in writing should help me solve that problem. So here goes.

💅🏻 Barbie. It's not Mattel's Toy Story. It's more than that. I enjoyed the movie and the message it was trying to convey. Plus, the most acting Ryan Gosling has ever done in a movie.

Excellent, highly recommend.

🤯 Oppenheimer. A three-hour long character study. Masterfully filmed and well-told (it did not feel like three hours at all), but I miss Nolan from Memento or even Prestige. To me, his recent movies certainly have the scale but lack this clever storytelling that makes you obsess about what you just saw and leaves you mind-blown.

I feel like Nolan tried to pull one of those tricks with the flashbacks and time period changes but it didn't add anything meaningful to the story for me. Was it there just to encourage multiple viewings? – so people see it again to double-check they figured out what happened when.

And another Nolan staple: the sound mix was BAD. Terrible. 💩/10.

[DIALOGUE UNINTELLIGIBLE] all the way. Hate it. If even Americans have trouble understanding what the characters say, you can imagine how hard it is for non-native speakers (even more so, if those non-natives live in Hong Kong and their only clutch is subtitles in Chinese, fml).

📺 Silo / Wool. Strong Fallout vibes — and I’m a sucker for some good post-apo.

Picked up the book after watching the Apple TV+ series. And discovered it moves so much faster than the show. Perhaps even too fast (season one ends at around ~1/3rd of the first book). The pacing of the show gave it more room to breathe and for more character development.

The second book in the series, Shift, is already in my reading queue.

Sidenote: I like how TV+ is becoming a streaming service of choice for quality sci-fi (Severance season two – when?)

🎞️ Grainydays. This is my most recent YouTube discovery. I have to say, YT's algorithm is scarily accurate at serving me videos on topics I'm interested in. And Jason's channel hits that mark 100%.

It's all about film photography, from color to black and white to infrared. The videos are not dry how-to's or gear reviews – they're full of nicely composed frames (I love that XPAN look) and very specific humor (an acquired taste, but the acquisition comes fast and easy). I was hooked and binge-watched pretty much the entire 3-year video history of the channel in a week.

And now I’m jealous of California weather and photo opportunities (definitely a lot of abandoned buildings in the deserts around Los Angeles!) And of the film look, of course. To the point that getting a film camera is now constantly on my mind. But I can’t justify spending HK$40k on a Leica M6 just to unlock “…on film” suffix and 🎞️ emoji in my Instagram photo captions.

Will need to settle for a Portra 400 preset in Photomator, at least for now.

🖼️ Casual.Grains’ photo exhibition. Speaking of grain and film and making me chase the analog look in my digital photos… earlier in July I had the opportunity and pleasure to see Enoch’s photo exhibition in Wan Chai – and even meet him in person! The photos were delightful, with a sense of calm and longing to them. Plus, I thoroughly enjoyed connecting with Enoch and geeking out about photography, cameras, and film.

Looking forward to some photo walks together once the weather is more bearable!

📷 Walkie Talkie episode with Aaron Berger. Continuing with photography, this was the most useful video on street photography process I've seen in a while.

Not relying on motivation, finding your (photographer's) identity, endurance>intensity, what to look for on the streets, how to time your shots... I just admire how much Aaron has it all figured out, he doesn't even think twice when answering Paulie's questions. You can see he had thought about all that already, worked it out, and it's a part of his identity (and process) now.

The real goal [of street photography] is just to keep doing it.

So much inspiration packed in a 30-minute video. It made me start experimenting with a different approach in my own street photography as I keep searching for my own style.

📚 You Can't Screw This Up. Science-based fitness advice and concrete examples (recipes, less-unhealthy takeout options) is what I'm here for. MUCH better than overhyped Outlive. Quick read, too – less fluff, more actionable tips.

😈 Diablo 4. I don't know, man – I'm just not feeling it. The campaign was fine (leaps and bounds above D3's), but the endgame and the seasonal model is not working for me. It… doesn’t spark joy. Still deciding whether it's me and my gaming burnout or is Diablo 4’s endgame just hollow and pointless and unsatisfying.

Soulless like Activision Blizzard, that’s for sure.

🚀 Those Old Scientists. Saving best for last. Strange New Worlds season two, episode seven was the best episode of "new Trek", period. Crossover between Lower Decks and SNW worked out surprisingly well, resulting in many laughs but also a few quite important character moments!

I'm amazed by how much range this show has. It shows the strength of this more episodic model (as opposed to a season-wide story arc). One episode can be comedy, then the next episode switches back to exploration and philosophy and classic sci-fi, then switch gears again and do a musical episode, while also leaving room for something more somber like Under the Cloak of War. And it all works! Contrast that with Discovery (touchy-feely all the time) or Picard (nostalgia trip all the time) — SNW is in a whole different league.

I love this show. Strikes perfect balance between classic sci-fi, nostalgia call-outs, comedy, and action/adventure. Can't recommend enough!

Hope you enjoyed this change of pace. I think it works well with Metagame's theme of exploring hobbies. Can do more of that.

Thanks for reading!

— Chris