#astronaut review

[emerald-notes]

The Astronaut, single by Jin

Note: It’s been a long time and here I am, still stuck in ‘The Astronaut’. Gonna share some personal opinion on this and I swear, I’ll shut up.

Rating - 10/10

“A life, a sparkle in your eyes, Heaven coming through, And I love you.”

Where do I even start? I feel like no matter how much I rant, my love for this song can never be expressed in words. The lyrics, the music and the mv, all of these have their own charms. I just absolutely love it.

Let’s start with its lyrics. I love the references of the cosmos used in this song. If Jin was an asteroid drifting all alone, Army was his heaven, a safe place. When Jin is in darkness, Army shines upon him like the Milky way. “You became my universe” is enough to prove how Jin dedicates his life for us and how we have become everything for him. We all know from the previous solo works of Jin that he is someone who constantly doubts himself and it is the love of the Army that brings him back from despair.

Isn’t it amazing how Jin, and all the BTS members in general, show how grateful they are to us? I am also grateful to them for making us feel loved. This song directly touches the heart. It is, in fact, the best kind of love letter one can ever wish for. It is a song that feels too personal. I feel like it was meant for me, as an individual. That’s one of the best achievements of this masterpiece.

The music video is so cute. Jin, representing an alien crashing on earth, who apparently doesn’t have any emotions. The little girl of his neighborhood plays with him often and he unconsciously grows empathy within himself. On the day his spaceship is finally leaving to go back to space, Jin realizes that it is the earth that is his true home and comes back.

Here are a lot of indications. For a start, the little girl represents Armys. If Jin was someone without dreams, the Armys made him want to dream. Just like the little girl helped him with the development of emotions. Again, though unconsciously, when the alien Jin decided to leave for good, he left his helmet with the girl so that she doesn’t hurt herself riding the bike alone without him around. As our Jin was leaving to join the military, he had left his precious song and along with it, a lot of content for the Armys to enjoy in his absence. Even the morse code for ARMY was literally tattooed on his neck in the mv. Just like the alien Jin realizing that the girl was his true home and coming back to her at the end, our Jin also promises us his coming back after serving his time in the military. Hence, I love the music video so much and I keep coming back to it time after time.

I will forever be grateful to Coldplay for accepting Jin’s request and making this song a reality. They are the sweetest souls ever. It shows how a real artist can recognize and appreciate another great artist. I love the bond between Jin and them, especially with Chris. It makes me immensely proud how far Jin has come. While he considered Coldplay as his idol in his youth, he is now collaborating with them side by side. Both of their styles of music are evident in this track. As if two beautiful melodies came together to become a better version of themselves.

I can’t talk about the Astronaut without bringing up the concert in Argentina. Here’s another reason for me to be grateful to Coldplay. They really understood the significance of this song for the Armys as a goodbye gift from Jin and that’s why they decided to have him at their personal concert. I could see the admiration in their eyes when Jin was performing. I also enjoyed the part where Chris opened his arms for Jin to run and embrace him while he sweetly kissed him on the cheek. This interaction was everything. When, both Chris and Jin were singing together to my favorite part and they couldn’t help but laugh in between, we could see Jin’s sparkling eyes so clearly. It shows how overwhelmed he was with emotion. I won’t lie about crying to that part myself.

Finally, the “I love you” part deserves its own paragraph. Would you think that it wasn’t intentional of Jin to finish his last live performance for the Armys by saying that he loves us? I think not. Jin is a genius and an absolute sweetheart for that. The reactions of the Armys at the concert was genuine. They looked so happy and sad at the same time. And I love you too, my Jinnie.

I am fully absorbed in this piece of art. It has become a part of me and I am totally obsessed with it now. I thank you, Jin, for making me feel this way. This work of yours is going to live in my heart rent free for the rest of my life.

[superfan44]

Superfan's Short Movie Reviews: "Fly Me to the Moon"

During the summer blockbuster season, it's nice to find some light big screen fare that can still leave you feeling good by the end. This is a funny and sweet movie with a brisk pace that never drags, great chemistry between its actors, a dash of optimism, and a fun story that certainly plays around a bit with history but doesn't necessarily alter or interfere with it. All in all, a delightfully enjoyable feature that really shoots for the moon.

[inconsistently--consistent]

Thursday August 29th 2024

Book Review: Project Hail Mary

Reccomend: 10/10

Loved it, couldn't put it down.

Plot: 10/10

Excellent plot twists but flows naturally. Well explained. Tackles difficult topics with nuance. Requires the audience think a little to see the moral points or discussions being raised.

Creativity: 10/10

Haven't read anything like it. Including the Martian.

[applestorms]

uhh okay so, some preliminary caveats: i am only just now Currently going through the process of learning this stuff so my understanding may be especially limited for this subject + idk how much of this is intentional on hussie's part buuut i also generally don't care that much about "author's intent" anyways so. let's see what i can do here.

this is the, "kantian metaphysics of space & time and how that might apply to homestuck aspects, because i'm slightly insane & i need to make my homework interesting," post. you know the funk mclovin homestuck & philosophy series? this should fall into a similar vein.

SO.

kant sees space & time as essentially two fundamental features of human perception, i.e. two cognitive faculties inherent to the human mind & Experience (kant's big into jargon so i'm gonna try to be careful w/ words here but, ehh not that careful). notable context here is that a big part of kant's overall goal (i'm reading selections from both the critique of pure reason & the prolegomena) is to respond to the empiricist (e.g. hume) and rationalist (e.g. descartes) points of view, ultimately critiquing, agreeing with, and synthesizing together different aspects of both stances.

w/ a lot of the space & time stuff kant is really responding to hume, who, as an empiricist, saw experience as the primary source of any n all deep metaphysical truths. this is as opposed to the rationalist position, which saw metaphysical truths as coming primarily from reason (e.g. descartes' whole process in the meditations of hyperbolic doubt -> one fundamental truth of "i think, so i exist," -> CDP & reasoning back up to bigger metaphysical truths like the existence of God). i tend to think of hume's position as the more passive one here, where you can just sit n chill n receive information through experiences from the outside world, versus descartes' position which is more active and requires more vigorous reasoning.

it's hume's ideas about "experience" itself here that kant is poking at, specifically the ways in which humans understand experience in the first place. to do this kant executes a kind of copernican flip w/ the order of understanding & experience.

(under the ptolemaic model, earth was originally situated at the center of the universe, surrounded by the moon, sun, planets (then only mercury, venus, mars, jupiter, & saturn), w/ a wall of stars on the outside. in 1543, nic copernicus flipped this view w/ his new heliocentric model, which placed the sun at the center & earth in orbit around it as the third planet in. thus, the copernican flip.)

kant's flip here is about the order of sensory information coming in & being interpreted in the brain. typically, and this is the logic hume followed, the assumption is that we passively gain information about the external world through the senses (we experience things) and then -> we break it down & interpret to understand it. correct?

according to kant, fuck no. in order to have an experience As A Person, humans inherently must have the cognitive faculties to understand space & time prior to any synthetic judgements.

here's my best analogy for this:

imagine building a model, or a bookshelf, or any kind of similar structure that provides you w/ pieces to put together yourself. if you've ever done anything like this before, you may know that not following the instructions makes it real easy to end up w/ a bunch of random leftover pieces that could just as easily be super fucking important or bonus spares. following the instructions, however, instead makes it a lot easier to understand what the true purpose of those pieces actually is. the paper just tells you. using this analogy: what kant is getting at here is not really the pieces themselves, but how they're understood by the person putting them together. space & time are essentially the instructions that determine what those spare pieces are-- only instead of being somewhat optional instructions, they are literally built into human understanding, like inherently. you are born w/ the instructions, and you cannot comprehend any of the pieces any other way. for another example of this: look at the room currently around you & focus on one object, like a chair, or a tree if you're outside. try imagining a space without that object, or even space without anything in it. shouldn't be too hard, you can even look up at the night sky and see all the empty space out there for yourself. now try imagining that object without space-- not just in the area surrounding it but inside it, creating the boundaries of it, not just 2D but completely lacking any spacial features at all. basically impossible, at least according to kant.

(just keeping this indented to break up the post a bit btw, not quoting anything here)

the important point to take from all this is that an understanding of space & time precedes actual sensory/synthetic experiences for kant. we simply Cannot comprehend things outside of spatial & temporal features, it is literally past the realm of human understanding.

this is where kant's whole synthetic a priori thing comes in w/ relation to his metaphysics. for a quick rundown:

analytic & synthetic: about judgements themselves.

analytic judgements: just about concepts, where the definition is contained within the term, i.e. the predicate is embedded within the subject. for example: all bachelors are single adults. no new information is added here, "single adult" is a part of the definition of "bachelor".

synthetic judgements: amplify knowledge, go beyond basic definitions, telling something new through the connection between two concepts via experience or intuition. for example: not all birds are capable of flight. these ones can be wrong, "capability of flight," is not something you inherently get from the definition of "bird". (alternate example: 5+7=12. you don't get the concept of 12, or even addition/math, from 5 & 7 alone.)

a prior & a posteriori: "from the earlier/prior to" & "from the later," respectively. about how judgements are known/justified/made.

a priori: independent of experience.

a posteriori: dependent on experience.

put together:

analytic a priori: conceptual truths.

analytic a posteriori: impossible (unless, maybe, you're God).

synthetic a posteriori: experiential truths.

synthetic a priori: possible, though difficult. the basis for kant's metaphysics. the big example kant uses here is geometry, which HE says is both synthetic, due to ideas like "all angles add up to 180 degrees" not being inherent to the definition of a triangle, and a priori, due to how geometry utilizes the cognitive faculty for understanding space that is built into the mind & is therefore independent of the need for experience/external sensory input.

that being said. what the hell does any of this shit have to do w/ homestuck, apples, you may be asking. well, barely anything, but lemme pull some conclusions out of my ass to justify subjecting you to this much kant. thank you if you've actually read this far. i love you.

the actual homestuck bit now:

it is made very clear at multiple points throughout homestuck that space & time are two aspects necessary for the completion of any given session of sburb/sgrub. one of my favorite series' to re-listen to on youtube, the textalks aspect analysis series, breaks this down in a really great way by pointing out that not only do space & time make up the basic fabric of reality, but they also specifically make up the basic fabric of homestuck's reality, as a narrative and story. they are the set and runtime as much as the physical world (or, following what we just went through, faculty of the mind- gonna make that connection in a sec, i promise).

i'd need to do more digging to check how explicitly this is said, but i think it's a reasonable conclusion that both a space & a time player are necessary for any session to even have a chance at success. the thematic associations w/ birth & death to space & time respectively are especially fitting for this reason, w/ the space players' ties to the breeding of the genesis frog & forge and time players' ties to a scratch construct (e.g. the beat mesa on LOHAC) being key to the success or restarting of any session of sburb. (a homestuck & death essay is next on my list to write. no promises for when that one's coming out.)

i actually don't remember if this is said directly, but it seems pretty clear to me that a part of the reason why the alpha kids' session was so completely, utterly stagnant was their lack of a time or space player. whether their session was void bc of a lack of time & space or was fated to be void & thus in turn fated to not have a time or space player is kind of besides the point here (skaia, like God, is one of those things that probably falls outside of human comprehension & the necessity of being subjected to the faculties for s&t), since either way they ended up not prototyping anything either.

rose discusses this w/ dave around (A6I2:4701-4708), when she breaks down void & null sessions:

DAVE: didnt you say at some point that not prototyping anything would be really bad ROSE: Yes. ROSE: It's just another way to create an infertile session. Though by a less catastrophic and bloody route we took to achieve the same result. ROSE: By contrast, it leads to a rather harmless, uneventful session. Underlings remain unaugmented, and so does the royalty. ROSE: And while this may sound advantageous to the players, it's a curse in disguise. The lack of prototypings which keeps adversaries unevolved has the same influence on the battlefield. ROSE: Without successive prototypings, the battlefield will never reach its final form, which must be fertilized to grow a new universe.

(A6I2:4702)

it's roses last line here that really stands out to me here, in connecting the failure of the session to evolve w/ the lack of prototypings to a lack of an evolved space.

slight sidenote, but one thing i've always wondered about is why hussie/whoever worked on the tie-breaker order for the extended zodiac quiz, decided to put time before space. even following kant's arguments (yes, we're still doing that) he seems to give space some precedence over time in the creation of his proofs:

Therefore the simultaneous existence of substances in space cannot be cognized in experience except under the presupposition of an interaction between them; this is therefore also the condition of the possibility of the things even as objects of experience.

(the critique: part c. third analogy, on the principle of simultaneous existence, B 258)

this is maybe not the best quote, but basically, ifaik kant breaks down all of his arguments for time being a basic faculty after space, w/ time's arguments being dependent on the ability to understand thing spatially (?)

to really tie this all together though: i think i'm actually more interested in kant's metaphysics here for how they connect time & mind, highlighting further just how in sync terezi & dave were during the beta kids' session.

i still really like how tg managed to fit understanding of mind into my post on plato & knowledge, way back when i wrote that essay, though i think this kant stuff could be another interesting way of looking at it.

mind in hs is very caught up in actions, in looking at & judging people through the things they do. it's complementary to heart in how external it is, less caught up in the nuances of an internal self by looking primarily at the vast range of potential choices any individual may or may not make over the course of their life.

kant, too, likes utilizing this line between external & internal. it's a part of how he refutes the cartesian skeptical/"problematic idealist," perspective, by basically saying that you can't doubt the existence of an external world w/o also doubting the existence of an internal one too-- here, by tying the internal "i think, i exist," self to persistence over time, which must come from the external world as, taking from hume, the internal is in constant flux.

time (& even space) being an inherent faculty of the mind really works in this context, what with how terezi is essentially able to see the multitude of timelines that any & all given actions lead to, and i quite like how this also shows some of the underlying connections/overlap between multiple aspects.

that's one of the ideas brought up in those tex talks videos that i really appreciate too, actually-- the nuances of how different aspects can deal w/ similar ideas, e.g. "life" is it's own aspect but as i just pointed out space is also tied to birth (and time to rebirth; istg i'm writing that death post), light to energy/vigor/living in the spotlight-- hell, even breath & blood & heart to the physical necessities of life itself. i'm almost tempted to say that aspects are less, "building blocks of the world," as they seem to sometimes be portrayed, and more lenses that filter through and emphasize different fundamental ideas (fits the color theory stuff optimistic duelist & arrghus were doing, maybe). that would certainly also fit with the idea that seers channel all of their understanding through their aspect, fixating on one possible lens & seeing all there is to see through it.

anyways, yeah. kant n homestuck. astronaut fuckin OUT.

[mlemedt]

🎃October Reads🎃

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

💛💛💛💛🤍(4/5)

❤️The Scarlet Veil❤️

-Shelby Mahurin-

I honestly wasn't expecting to like this book so much. Me and my friend picked it up in a bookstore and laughed at it- I think the way it's been promoted is completely misleading. On the front cover, when I read "She lived for the light, He showed her the dark" I cringed so much I knew I had to read it. I thought it'd be fun and I'd get a good laugh out of this strange French themed vampire romance, but to my surprise it was intensely atmospheric, and completely aware of what it was. Mahurin's writing is honestly so beautiful and sensory I was almost taken aback. The plot mostly centers around a murder investigation and the relationship between the protagonists, but was again, pleasantly surprised by the agency of the main character. She's quite traditionally feminine but hardly one dimensional. Other characters do treat her like glass, but the way Mahurin combats this was intensely refreshing. It wasn't overtly feminist (like other books I've talked about) but rather realistic. She doesn't suddenly become strong and prove everyone wrong, but rather utilises her own abilities and partnerships. For a fantasy book, it had incredibly real characters.

Overall it was a lot of fun and again, incredibly atmospheric, the world created was beautiful but still held a sense of realism. If you like the supernatural or masquerade balls and large castles this is the perfect book to get into the mood for Halloween.

💛💛💛💛🤍(4/5)

🌍Orbital🌏

-Samantha Harvey-

Slightly off theme for October but ominous nevertheless. I've been reading this book for a school debate so I've had to think about it critically whilst reading. Whilst I think it's an incredibly profound text on mortality and the political climate, as a reader it was a little dull. I really enjoyed it for the first 50 pages as its astronauts whirled around Earth and contemplated the relationship between people and planet, but by this point I felt that no new points were really being made. It was incredibly repetitive, which I think is clearly intentional but with no narrative to guide the story, I felt like I was literally floating with no real connection to the book. Despite being only about 130 pages I somehow really struggled to the end.

However, I do think the topics the novel discussed were incredibly important and conveyed in a really effective way. If you enjoy more philosophical literature, or books that challenge your thinking I can highly recommend, but I don't really see it becoming a popular book.

💛💛🤍🤍🤍(2/5)

🖤A Touch of Darkness🖤

-Scarlett St.Clair-

A slight contrast to the previous novel, this book is a retelling of Hades and Persephone but with a modern AU. I will say if you're interested in mythological retelling's, this felt a lot like a budget Lore Olympus. It was surprisingly fun nevertheless, but it definitely needed a content warning. I found it didn't add much to their story. Neither of the characters had much personality and I couldn't really tell you what they do for most of the book. It was the sort of standard I expected with the Scarlet Veil above, but St.Clair's writing failed to produce something convincing. I was slightly disappointed learning she'd come from tumblr too.

I don't think I'll be getting the next novel, but I'd hope the narrative becomes more compelling and the writing improve to help convey this. Lots of things just happened and the main plot point often went forgotten. Persephone had little agency, and honestly Hades too. He didn't maintain much of a presence outside his scenes and even in those I felt he was quite blurry. In some books characters can be incredibly visceral and you can feel utterly transported, but I was aware of every word on the page and I still couldn't piece together any essence of personality.

I like to think I gave it a good chance but I was just underwhelmed by the writing, the story, the characters and even the romance. It was vaguely reminiscent of those horrible Netflix shows that have little going for them other than a bit of voyeurism but I wish the author the best nevertheless, simply having the bravery to put your work out there is a massive step.

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♥♥♥

-Gaia

[rachel-sylvan-author]

"The Martian" by Andy Weir book recommendation by Rachel Sylvan

[amorphousbl0b]

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

“Six astronauts rotate in their spacecraft above the earth. They are there to collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.”

This little book is what the written word was meant to do. It could not be told, it would be unfathomably dull in any other medium. Its message is in thoughts and hopes. Its thesis would be lost in silence. But in these pages its message is bright, invigorating, saddening, soothing.

There's something special in a book about the contemporary space program. I've not seen many of those, they're all about last century, things that are already over. This story could happen tomorrow, or when Artemis 3 launches in 2026 I suppose. It's almost science fiction and yet we will achieve it. This is real. Impossible and real.

This is not a novel that marches its story steadily along to a conclusion you can see coming. It is the passage of time. It is a single day. It is the tragedies and musings of a single day. It is the feeling of looking up at the stars and wanting to jump into them, wanting to rise (or maybe fall) so far that you can look back at the ground and begin for the first time to appreciate that such a tiny thing as you can dream something so enormous as any dream at all.

[itcamefromthetoybox]

DOLLLLLLS IN SPAAAAAAACE!!!

So continuing from last week’s review, we’re going to keep up our review on Barbie dolls. Why? Because the upcoming movie looks so great, so this is how I’m handling my enthusiasm, so I don’t talk my wife’s ear off! This week, we’re looking at one of my personal favorite dolls from the franchise, “Space Discovery Astronaut Barbie!”

The “Space Discovery” line, as you can probably guess from the name, is a line of Barbie products focusing on space. You’ve got space stations, small space ship playsets for child dolls to play in, and even science classrooms focusing on space. That’s a lot of space stuff, and as someone who loves him some space toys, I am thrilled!

The doll we’re looking at today, Astronaut Barbie, comes in two varieties: white Barbie and black Barbie. Both dolls come with the same outfit and accessories, and they both have the same levels of articulation, so let’s dive in!

Each doll is posed standing at attention, with slight bends in their arms. They’ve got the standard Barbie articulation: moving arms and legs, and ball-joint necks. So pretty much what you’d expect from a Barbie doll.

You would not believe how hard it was to get a picture without massive amounts of glare on the helmets.

The dolls have the standard Barbie bodies, like you’d expect. There is one big thing to note here, though. Normally, people think of Barbies as having big arches in their feet, like they’re wearing eternal high heels. In fact, one of the big scenes from the first Barbie trailer puts focus on Barbie’s foot having that arch, and a later trailer makes a big deal out of Barbie no longer having that arch. So considering how much I’ve been talking about the arch in Barbie’s foot, you can probably guess what I’m about to say: “Barbie has no foot arch.” Well, you’d be wrong. What I’m actually gonna say is that the arch, which still present, is slighter than what people would expect. 

That annoying moment when you misplace your shoe before work.

This is actually the case with a lot of modern day Barbie dolls. The reason is so your Barbie can wear different shoes and outfits without having to do a different leg mold for each Barbie. While some dolls do have the classic high arch and others have completely different leg designs, this lower arch is actually more common in modern day dolls. So if you haven’t bought the dolls for ages, this could be something useful to know. It also means you can grab most dolls and expect the different outfits sold separately to fit just fine.

The black and white Barbies do have different heads and hair textures/haircuts, which is great. The main thing I want to talk about here is the hair texture. The black doll has softer, curly hair, while the white Barbie has stiffer, straight hair. It’s a huge difference in texture, and leads to one of my few issues with Astronaut Barbie. The blonde hair feels like straw. It’s stiff and dry to the touch, like someone used way too much bleach for too long.

Barbies pose for their company photo IDs.

Now, let’s talk outfits. Astronaut Barbie wears a smooth spacesuit with a very nice amount of detailing on them. I love how the suits look and feel. They’re shiny, smooth to the touch, and covered with detailing that really adds to the look without being too much. It’s the right amount of detailing. The suits also have space program logos on the chests, which is a really nice touch.

Astronaut Barbie has a pair of large, plastic gloves and boots. The gloves have slits down the back to make it easier to put them on Barbie and to let them better go over the sleeves of the space suits, but the slits don’t close all the way and some of the sleeves can stick out of the slits as a result of this. The boots are very thick, which I really like, and even fit under the suit legs. Getting them on and off is a challenge because they are very stiff, which can be a little bit of a pain, but I do love the boots. They have a lot of sculpted details, which look really great will definitely excite kids. Also, the boots are treaded on the bottoms, which helps the doll stand on her own without the need for a stand.

Barbie also comes with a space helmet that’s made of two pieces that clip together over the doll’s head. The helmet looks great, but it also brings us to the second issue I have with the doll. The helmet doesn’t fit tightly over the doll’s head, so it’s loose and flops around. The other issue is from how the helmet clips together. Since the dolls have hair, the hair can get caught in the helmet and stick out of the top and sides. It can take a good amount of fiddling to get the hair completely in the helmet.

Barbie comes with four accessories: a small flag and three astronaut ice cream sandwiches. The flag has a little clip on it that lets Barbie hold it in her hand, but it can be a bit of a challenge to fit the clip on the gloves. I often just wedge it onto the glove’s thumb and hope it doesn’t fall off. 

We claim the moon in the name of the Barbie Empire!

The astronaut ice cream sandwiches actually bring us to my third and final complaint: Barbie has no way to hold those at all, so you’re probably gonna lose them like I did. That’s a shame, because astronaut ice cream is one of my favorite things ever. I would kill for an astronaut ice cream sandwich right now, in fact. So delicious.

Behold, one of humanity’s greatest achievements!

“Space Discovery Astronaut Barbie” goes for about $17 and can be found at most retailers. She’s recommended for ages 3+, but do keep in mind that both versions of the doll come with very small accessories that can fit in the throats and noses of both kids and very dumb adults, so use your best judgement there. Would I recommend this toy? Absolutely. Space is freaking awesome, and the idea of a Barbie that explores space is really awesome. I feel like this doll and the theme itself is one that everyone, kids and adults alike, would love. Definitely don’t be afraid to grab this doll. Next week, we’ll be looking at a more collector-aimed doll as we continue our look at Barbie. So come back and take a look at what’s happening! This is JS signing off and wishing you Happy Toy Hunting!

[vonlipvig]

Was i.s.s funny bad or....? Never heard of the film.

nah, it was just...regular bad, y'know? normal bad, mind you, not terrible bad, but bad nonetheless lmao. i still kinda liked it at first, i think the concept and the single location were very cool and had a lot of potential, but it never got much better than mid.

don't reccommend but if you want to watch something you don't wanna pay too much attention to then yeah, give it a shot i guess.

[jensomniac]

Okay, so....

I watched The Astronaut's Wife last night on youtube (free with ads!). Yay.

So... the ending... if you haven't seen it, please scroll away, because spoilers...

The ending... someone explain it to me... She k*lled Spencer because Spencer k*lled her sister, and ya know... alien. Whatever. How did she not go to prison for that? I would like to have seen after Spencer was offed, what kind of legal troubles. She couldn't have claimed self defense because it was a couple days later or something, plus Spencer didn't have a weapon on him...

Also... what was with the new name and hair?

I would have chalked the whole thing up to her actually being crazy and imagining her entire relationship with Spencer except for Zack and Cody over there looking like they were going to k*ll someone before they got on the bus. And Jill/Susan/whatever telling that guy he was their new dad...

[malcolmschmitz]

https://eip.gg/news/first-look-astronaut-the-best/

Once again, Tumblr is being a trash fire, so I can't properly link it...

Buuuuut, I wrote a pre-review for a narrative game I'm really excited about called AstroNaut The Best.

Please check this review- and the game!- out. It's become the game I'm hype for this year, and I can't wait for the next time they drop a demo.

[bargainsleuthbooks]

The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts by Loren Grush #NewBooks #BookReview #AudiobookReview #September2023Books #History #Biography #NASA #SimonandSchusterAudio

A #newbook tells the fascinating real-life story of the first American female #Astronauts. #TheSix #Theuntoldstoryofamericasfirstwomenastronauts #LorenGrush #bookreview #NASA #Newbooks #bookreview #ushistory #womenshistory #simonandschusteraudio

In the bestselling tradition of Hidden Figures and Code Girls, the remarkable true story of America’s first women astronauts—six extraordinary women, each making history going to orbit aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle. When NASA sent astronauts to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s the agency excluded women from the corps, arguing that only military test pilots—a group then made up exclusively of…

[in-the-stacks]

Presenting Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Reviewed by Read Local for In the Stacks. http://www.inthestacks.tv/2023/06/project-hail-mary-by-andy-weir

[emeto-film-critic]

Hidden Figures - 2016

SAFE

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Astronaut’s Wife (1999)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

Rosemary’s Baby is given a fresh coat of paint in The Astronaut’s Wife. Well, theoretically anyway. Neither sexy nor scary, it’s the kind of movie that might’ve had potential but didn’t even try. Talk about a letdown.

After a communications blackout while orbiting the earth, NASA astronaut Spencer Armacost (Johnny Depp) returns home to his wife, Jillian (Charlize Theron), and vows never to fly again. When his co-pilot Streck (Nick Cassavetes) suddenly dies and Spencer begins exhibiting strange behavior, Jillian wonders if he's still human, and what sort of baby is growing inside her.

If you’ve seen Rosemary’s Baby there’s no reason to see this film. If you haven’t you may not be able to foresee the story’s beats… but I doubt it. Everything it does you’ve seen better elsewhere. We’re supposed to wonder whether Jillian is imagining the strange noises she hears coming from the radio, if Spencer’s radical personality shift is nothing to be alarmed about and if Dr. Sherman Reese (Joe Morton)/his theories are pure hogwash. You never do. There is simply too much evidence siding towards the theory of Spencer having been replaced or somehow possessed by some kind of extraterrestrial being. You would only believe him human if a) we received concrete proof that Marzoids don’t exist b) someone proved they do exist but have better things to do than spawn human-alien babies or c) Jillian was just a straight jacket away from the loony bin or otherwise untrustworthy. You might’ve been able to get away with it if the character of Sherman Reese wasn’t there. As a matter of fact, why is he in this movie?

The Astronaut’s Wife would’ve been better if it were worse. You’ve got Johnny Depp. You’ve got Charlize Theron. It’s about a woman who thinks she’s been impregnated by a little green man but there’s no nudity and no tantalizing sex scenes. Talk about lame. I was bored waiting for the film to catch up to what I already knew. I know you’d be bored too. The only thing that could have saved this movie was a brilliant conclusion.

The ending is a double whammy of lame horror-wannabe twists which will have you rolling your eyes. No satisfying answers are given, and nothing cool is shown. It really is a generic “is my baby the devil?” movie where someone did a find-replace to switch “Satan” with “Spaceman”.

I guarantee after it’s done, no one who saw The Astronaut’s Wife will give it a second thought, even if they do manage to stay awake during the whole thing. When you leave the audience fondly looking back at Species 3, you’ve got problems. (On VHS, March 15, 2019)

[imathers]

Top 40: Cloakroom — Dissolution Wave

Cloakroom! As I often say these days, I don’t automatically have an “album of the year” but (as I said in my year-end piece) this year it’s pretty hard to deny Dissolution Wave the title. Their last record was a Torres Memorial Prize winner and they ruled when I saw them live, so I’ve been anticipating this record since sometime in early 2018. Given that, it would have been really easy for the new one to disappoint me one way or another, and I got the promo really early so it’d be even easier for me to be a bit sick of it by now, but... nope!

I discussed in my review a bit how much the themes of Dissolution Wave resonated with me, and they still do. That’s one part of its seeming inexhaustability, at least for me; as long as I still feel this way about meaning and creation, I’m probably going to keep on loving this Cloakroom record.