Flatland the Film (2007)

This film either awoken me or broken me and I can’t honestly tell which. I started to watch this, but I restarted it so that my sister can join in. A bit into the film she said that she saw this film in an high school math class. Which is Buck Wild considering what this movie really was about. Overview: A Square is, well, a square, who lives in his plane of reality, dealing with his family, children, and political turmoil over multicolored laws and threatening neighboring nations. However his entire world is shaken (literally) as he is forced into a new way of thinking.

The movie was very engaging from the very beginning. There’s this sassy text narrator that just come and explains things, or just makes commentary on how things works. It’s only around for the first half of the movie, but it does break the ice on how Flatland works. So we can laugh as we try to work our way around the world.

I got really invested in the political war of flatland. The problem was whether shapes should let themselves be different colors, so there are different political factions on whether colorizing should be legal or not. A lot of the political speeches and arguments is actually similar to the things I’ve already heard of. I guess there is just constant war no matter what plane of reality. No matter how great the gods are. I love the animation. The creator obviously put in a lot of thought into how these worlds work. How the inhabitants of lineland, flatland, and spaceland feel and see themselves. That the flatlanders have Plus how they manage to explain the values they have to each other. Like, I was trying to visualize how flatlander’s saw with that lesson from the beginning of the film. And I completely understood how they tried to describe the dimensions to the other planes. All of this is just really fascinating, and you have to appreciate all the effort that was put into these concepts.

The 3D effects caught me off-guard, but it fits well. We got so used to the 2d shapes and lines, that the 3D world looked truly bizarre when it bled through. Well, the 3D effect looked bizarre regardless, but I think that was an intentional thing. It was still a world of basic shapes after all. Maybe the next stage are more complex 3D shapes like our world? There are still somethings that I’m still questioning. Or horrified. Like the hospital of shape reconfiguration. That horrified me. Like, how they use basically stapler looking things to reshape babies. Then how shapes can actually bleed and die. I mean sure, they are all just shapes, but that was pretty horrific.

I think that there’s a message here, like a grand message. But I, I’m not sure what I need to take away from this. Is it, the futility of war over irrelevant ideals/believes? Is it about the religious awakening and the possibility of something greater than yourself? Like, there is something here, but it isn’t something that I can instantly grasp. It’s like a modern version of the Allegory of the Cave, and I’m the person who just heard of it trying to conceptualize what is going on. I feel like it’s the type of movie that you really need to rewatch over and over to find out what the meaning is supposed to be. Or it’s like an abstract art piece, where sure the artist might have their view, but you can find your own meaning in there. It feels a bit complex, the longer I think about it, but in a good way. Overall: This is a great philosophical film to watch. Not only with points of war and politics, but also how you can explain concepts that people couldn’t even conceptualize. There is another movie called “Flatland the Movie” so I don’t really know the difference, but they are both available on youtube. Definitely check it out when you get the chance.

Tremors 4: The Legend Begins

The live action version of the Alaskan Bull Worm Well this is a strange set of circumstance. Mainly because I have not seen the second nor third movie. I have seen the 1st movie. I love the first movie. I’ve seen that movie multiple times over and over again ever since I was 10. Fantastic monster movie, 10/10 always recommend. Then I guess people decided to make a franchise out of it because Netflix has 7 movies available, the last 2 I’m 75% sure were specifically Netflix made. So how it happened was I saw the title for the 2nd movie: looked like a fun romp with a different cast. Saw the title for the 3rd movie: Burt comes back for revenge so…yeah I skipped that. 4th one tho? Where it’s the 1800s and they are fighting the giant worm things that took and entire gun arsinal from the first movie to kill one? Sign me the Hell Up. Overview: In the town of Rejection where the economy is set on a local silver mine, mysterious deaths happened to the miners, and scared everyone away. In order to save his business, Hiram Gummer comes into town to fix the problem, only to realize that both he and the town residence are in over their heads. Now it’s no longer a battle for the mine, but a battle for their very lives. Got to love a good plot summary.

Yes, we are indeed following the 1800s version of Perfection. Not just the town, but the inhabitants. The general store is run by a chinese family, like Chang in the first movie. There is a family, so we have children running about. And there is the outsider entering the town ( Rhonda from the first movie, Hiram in this one).

I think the best of all of this is that Hiram is canonnly an ancestor to Burt. Even played by the same actor Michael Gross. And he is everything that Burt isn’t, which is beautiful. Yes they can be a little thick headed, but Hiram is neat, orderly, the air of wealth around him, not above being a dick to children to get his things, the “gruff ruff ruff how dare you sir I’m a gentleman” which is a great antithesis to who Burt is. And it plays great because his entire character arc is him learning not to be a dick and to be basically more like Burt, at least in terms of asserting oneself and a sense of community.

It isn’t just Burt Ancestor, but Heather too. The hotel owner Christine is, first of all really cool, but is like the stand in for Heather (Burt’s Wife). And she really is so cool here. Stands her ground, the matriarch leader of the town that the community gathers behind. And they did a really good at the romance between her and Hiram. The movie takes place over the course of months as opposed to the two days from the first movie, so there is a real natural slow burn to their romance that makes freaking logical sense. It felt like I was watching the romance between Burt and Heather from the first movie, if Burt was a dork rich boy.

Tremors is so good with the supporting cast. Everyone is so loveable in this film. The Chang family are sweet and the kid is so flipping cute. Tecopa is funny when interacting with everything. It just feels like a small western town. And Juan, god Juan is so cool. He’s the local that saw the whole thing and warned everyone. He is my favorite character here. He just has a dream! He just wants to get enough money for his own farm! He doesn’t want to get hurt, but still helps the dumb rich guy in his investigation! And he does everything he can to help the town from these monsters! Like, my guy, love everything you do. You also see some really cool western gadgets throughout the movie. Telegraphs to figure out where people are at. Wagon races. Western Guns shooting at people. Just, when you put a monster attack in an era, you become very creative in your plot choices. And they don’t miss a chance here.

The cgi….look it can be better. It can be worse. It’s passable for the most part, so it doesn’t really hinder the movie, only when the worms are doing complex motions. Other than that, they use puppets like the 1st film, so it really feels like a classic Tremors movie. But I do like how they just build to the lore of the monsters. How they grow, their stages of development. It might have been touched on in the other 2 movies, but it is still nice to know that you don’t have to see the other two movies to understand how they work. Overall: Listen, seeing Western people deal with monsters is my jam. But I really wasn’t expecting much from them other than that. So having an actual plot, a wide cast of characters with their own personal struggles on top of a well executed monster attack, this was a great movie. A solid B Monster flick that anyone can watch.