Ohisashiburi Desu Ne!

Todd

It’s been a long time since I wrote anything for Ordinary Times or participated in the comments section. In 2020, like many folks, I was dragged into the COVID world. There have been a lot of big changes in my life and career since then that caused me to lose focus on the Big Ideas that first drew me to the blogosphere a decade and a half ago. I’ve missed that sustained discourse and offer the following unsolicited thoughts on random things as junk brought back from the wasteland:

Facebook – 2/10 – I’ve been using Facebook since I knew everyone on Facebook and tolerated its transformation from an inappropriate inside joke repository into a totally different, moneymaking animal via expansion to the global masses. Despite its efforts otherwise, Facebook has remained a convenient way to keep up with far-flung friends and family and selected elements of the early-2000s blogosphere diaspora. Yet, there is something insidiously different about Facebook recently: now, half the posts I see are not from friends. Most appear AI-generated, along with many of the posts I do see shared from friends. As frightening as social media has been, I fear things are about to get a lot worse to coincide with the advent of an AI-generated content explosion.

Civil War – 10/10 – I saw this in the theater at the first opportunity. I commented to a friend on Facebook that I thought it was the best film I’ve seen since No Country for Old Men. The film’s detractors seem to fall into remarkably predictable categories of those who are expecting something like Independence Day with Ron Swanson echoing Bill Pullman’s grandstanding declaration of American Greatness or those hoping for a Big Budget Hollywood acting out of their vindicated political fantasies, whatever they may be. This film is about how – not why – America will tear itself apart. As such, of course it is told from the perspective of journalists – photographers and writers – not politicians or generals. They didn’t expect civil war in Yugoslavia, and our critical response to this prescient film shows we’re in denial it could happen here. Civil War is well-paced. The story is tight and character-driven. The cinematography – particularly the ultimate urban combat scene – is fresh and captivating.

Shogun – 8/10 – This is well made, but the writing is somewhat predictable, meant for American audiences. I recall reading the novel as a young man traveling across North America, on my way to Fukushima, in the wilderness of Vancouver Island, before I knew anything of Japan, and being fascinated by the new world I was about to enter. Shogun is a real, immersive experience set a long time ago in a land far away. The show gets bonus points for being almost entirely in Japanese. Even though Shogun is getting limited play in Japan for reasons related to streaming service growing pains, star Hiroyuki Sanada apparently insisted on Japanese creative control, which has undoubtedly kept this series from turning into The Last Samurai.

Tokyo Vice – 7/10 – This is light and fun where Shogun is dark – but inconsistent. One episode contained the worst dialogue I have seen on screen since The Phantom Menace, but the next episode was a bop. The character Samantha is irritating. With the exception of Rinko Kikuchi, the female characters especially are vapid and unlikable. Tokyo Vice is soap opera disguised as hard crime docudrama.

The Sopranos – 10/10 – I’m re-watching this show now with my wife, in a completely different stage of life from when I first saw it. I’m realizing why the Sopranos had something for everybody – an entire nation watching one show. I’m 40 years old now – two years older than James Gandolfini was when the Sopranos debuted. There are story arcs I didn’t even know existed the first go-around – about being a father to teenagers, about being a son to aging parents. They don’t make shows like this anymore. Viewers lack the attention span for the slow build and subtle inference this story relies on to move forward and get the viewer to care for each and every sociopath at the center of the North Jersey mafia. Seeing the twin towers in each episode’s opening credits reinforces what will never return. If they made the Sopranos in 2024, the entire events of the series would take place across six episodes. There would be no Christopher Moltisanti acting lessons, no Carmela-Furio romance, no Artie Bucco at all.

Fallout – 6/10 – I’m a huge fan of the games – particularly Fallout Shelter. Fifties camp dominating a post-apocalyptic wasteland is a compelling motif. The problem with the show is it can’t restrain itself. It has way too much fun way too soon. We’ve come a long way from the Sopranos, where a man ruminating with his therapist about ducks takes an entire season building up to a narrative earthquake, to Fallout, where the same arc takes place in the first 15 minutes. I don’t care if any of these characters live or die. They mean nothing to me.

The Three-Body Problem – 5/10 – I heard this was good, so I started watching it on Amazon Prime. I thought it was strange that the entire show was in Chinese, since I heard that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss made it and that it starred the guy who played Samwise Gamgee in Game of Thrones. I realized about 20 minutes in that I was watching a different show and that I needed to switch over to Netflix to watch the Big Budget American adaptation of Liu Cixin’s science fiction novel. The first scene, (beware spoilers), where a physicist is beaten to death at a Cultural Revolution event, was very very different from the show I had previously been watching. I was excited that things might continue in that provocative vein. Alas, I watched another twenty minutes or so interspersed with pointlessly-shocking set pieces and quasiscientific pseudobabble before getting bored and turning it off completely.

Tesla full self driving – 4/10 – On April 1st, Tesla decided to make its full self driving beta available nationwide to Tesla owners. It’s a brilliant business and technological move for collecting massive amounts of real data to refine what has apparently been a lagging development. For lack of a better description: full self driving sucks. There are times when it goes 15 mph in a 45 for some unknown reason, and times when it tries to go 60 in a 30. It doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of driving the pace of traffic. For a while I thought it was getting better, but now I’m not so sure. Just today, it encountered a surprise yellow light – the car alternatively started to slow down, then suddenly sped up, then it slammed on the brakes before I took over manual control. At times it drives like a 90-year-old – inching its way into oncoming traffic in order to get a better look with its cameras. I’m scared whenever full self driving is engaged. It also relies on Tesla’s navigation, which leaves something to be desired. That being said, full self driving is unlike anything ever produced. It can get you to the store and back. It can get you across the country. It can get all sorts of goods and services across the country. Right now. Just as AI is the death throes for social media, Tesla’s full self driving is an area, I believe, where AI can tremendously benefit humanity.