MAGNIFICENT MULTIVERSAL MAYHEM

 

 

So, there I was out of the house, in a theater, enjoying what was coming at me on the screen. Yeah, I was right not to wait for it to show up on a streaming service.

I knew Michelle Yeoh was wonderful, but Everything Everywhere All at Once is. . . Words failed me. After a while I thought, I gotta review this, but how? I couldn’t think of what I would say, the way I usually do with most entertainment these days.

Eventually, synapses fired, thoughts

bubbled up in my overstimulated brain . . .

What we have here is a genuine case of Twenty-First Century Genre-Meltdown: sci-fi, action/martial arts, slapstick comedy, rom-com, all at once. I laughed my head off and was in tears at the end.

But wait—there’s more.

More than just a blast of endorphins you could also get from jabbing your brain’s pleasure centers with an electric cattle prod. Thoughts, ideas start coming along with the mayhem. Some in the dialogue, but most of them actually come through action. This is a masterpiece of showing rather than telling. Aspiring writers take note.

All the gut-level entertainment is about one of the great existential problems of our times: living with science, and our technologically enhanced access to information making the multi/universe larger and us and our place in it smaller. And it’s funny. 

It also handles the whole concept of the multiverse better than Marvel, or any of the other corporate franchises.

I’m reminded of when I first encountered the word multiverse, in  a scene from Michael Moorcock’s 1969 Jerry Cornelius novel, A Cure for Cancer:

‘The multiverse. All layers of existence seen at once. Get it?’

‘Philosophy isn’t my bent.’

‘This is physics, dear. Get in.’

And of course, most of the audience thinks it's all just sound and fury signifying nothing but a temporary lapse in the boredom that is an essential part of the pre-packaged lives they’ve bought into.

I think pop culture has finally caught up with us avant-garde spec fic wise guys. Wonder if I can cash in on it? Or at least have fun trying.

CHICANONAUTICA SEES SCI-FI SELF PORTRAITS WITH THE CHICANO IMAGINATION

 

Chicanonautica is seeing sci-fi self portraits over at La Bloga.

A new dimension in Chicano art:

And self portraiture:

Redefining the identity:

Revving up the Latinoid imagination:

AN AFROFUTURIST ODYSSEY WITH JESUS, BATMAN, STALIN, AND OTHERS . . .

Looking for alternatives to the corporate sci-fi franchises lulling you into a false sense of security, not to mention reality? They are out there. I just ran into one that has my jaded mind, that’s been soaking up the infernal genre for more than half a century, dripping from the ceiling.

The title is totally misleading, but then the whole universe is misleading. Be misled, get lost, and find your way, or a way, somehow . . .

Hmm . . . maybe Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway is a totally appropriate title after all . . .

 What I’m babbling about is a movie with the above mentioned long, problematic title. It stars Daniel Tadesse and was written and directed by Miguel Llansó. Tadesse is a dwarf, and there isn’t much about Llansó on Google. They also collaborated on another film, Crumbs, a poetic post-apocalyptic vision that beats the crap out of every other such film made so far in this century.

Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway is different, more post-cyberpunk Afrofuturism than heart-felt-if-ironic lyricism, filmed in Ethiopia, Estonia, Spain, and other places where ordinary objects look strange and suggest a sci-fi future or alternate universe. Things about it are like video games, but not contemporary ones, all retro with the taste of obsolescence.

At first, Tadesse seems to be a secret agent. His partner is named Palmer Eldritch as in Philip K. Dick’s classic alien invasion novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Dick seems to be a key to understanding it.

Back in the Seventies, I recall Star Trek/Twilight Zone/Logan’s Run author George Clayton Johnson saying that if you wanted to know what the future will be like, read Philip K. Dick.

So, are you a CIA agent in the future, or a guy in 1997 trying to make some cash? Do you want a pizzeria or a kickboxing academy? Do you dare to demand both?

Turns out that Jesus ain’t Jesus, Batman ain’t Batman, and Stalin ain’t Stalin. But anthropologists say that in so-called primitive cultures, when a person plays the part of a god they become the god. I’ve seen that it’s also true in our so-called modern civilization. All the newfangled technology just makes it more so. Cosplayers, please take note.

When I started writing this, I thought that I should include a warning that it is not a Christian film, but some Christians may interpret it as one. Others will just get their minds blown. Either way is a good thing.

Hey! Is that another new reality coming our way?

CHICANONAUTICA WELCOMES YOU TO NEO-LAREDO

It’s welcome to dystopia on the border in Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga.

Inspired by the former U.S. president:

And his wonderful wall:

For what it’s worth:

And where the hell we’re heading: