Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
Brainstorm's 8 Step Guide to Getting the Most Out of your Freelancer
In fact Perry has perfected the art of getting the maximum out of her freelancers. Editors ought to pay attention - she sets a mean example for what can be done when you set yourself the task of extracting blood from stones (that's us).
I'll do my best to illustrate her surefire methods with concrete, real life examples. Suffice it to say, Perry, in her wisdom, still has not paid for services rendered to one particular freelancer, an amount of just R6470 (due on May 15) for articles published in the May issue. Like this one. The freelancer in question has laughably referred the case to the CCMA, and ITWEB are sticking to their guns, as they should. In any event, the freelancer in question was clearly an independent contractor, so not only will his efforts to pursue payment for his work be in vain, but the CCMA are clearly the wrong port of call for the poor sod.
Now, back to the editorial side of fence. How does one, indeed, get the most out of these hopeless saps? Perry provides an 8-step guide to milking the freelancer for everything they've got, in order to serve your publication (and your interests) best.
1. In order to recruit a freelancer, one of the best ways is to place a job ad, and then cherry pick the top candidates who apply and try to convert these into making contributions as a sort of impromptu volunteer staff.
The beauty of the system, if you play it right, is you can get people
2. Get the freelancer to do it all. Perry has perfected the art in getting the freelancer to do all the work. One
The idea then is to get the freelancer to write, edit, configure, provide contact details (for Custom publishing - ie you source leads and business for them) in order to basically allow your company to do their jobs, which is not to publish content, but to see where they can make another content deal and go for long lunches (and spend Christmas in Mauritius). Since the writing isn't really looked at very carefully, this sort of thing happens:The text above and below the blue horizontal text in the left column is identical.
Here it is again, up close.
Perry's template business starts off fairly simple, but gradually they ask the freelancer to do more and more, until they start highlighting in red their additional ideas for you to do their work, with exclamation marks to emphasise just how fun and how new it all is!!!!!!!!!
In fact Perry's rule of thumb is if in doubt, send it back, or better yet, bin it. When Perry does 'send it back' she does so via the sub editor, whose job is not to sub but simply to traffic her queries, and have the freelancer fix his own work. The easy way to teach a freelancer that his commissioned story needs work is to approve it and then simply ignore it. That'll teach him.
3. Make sure the freelancer knows who is boss. Perry (from her photo you can see she's a real sweetheart) has made this her personal passion. As such, she'll gently steer the freelancer back onto the straight and narrow with gems like this:
4. Tell the freelancer what you think of him, and don't mince words. Sometimes it's not enough to make sure the freelancer know whose boss, sometimes more is required. But why stop at telling the freelancer directly - tell EVERYONE. On Twitter. And since the freelancer is also on twitter, and online directly during your email tete a tete, it couldn't be more obvious.
5. Get the freelancer to do even more. Since benefits and perks aren't wasted on a mere freelancer, the more you get him to do, the more the company saves. So load on the work. Get him to do Custom Publishing, and profiles, and photography. Try to forget that he is a freelancer, with other commitments to other publications, try to get him to come round to working exclusively, exhaustively for your company. How you do that is you keep piling it on, and remember, get him to edit his own work. Simply send it back. Remind him of onerous deadlines and make sure he is at your beck and call. In short, make sure the freelancer depends on you for an income (albeit without any benefits), but at the same time keep yourself in a position where you can jump to any other freelancer at the first sign of trouble.
6. Play the field. Even if you have a loyal freelancer, who might...say... offer to do work early to meet deadlines ahead of a trip, hedge yourself by accepting his offer to do advance work, but put an 'ad' up on the South African Freelancers Association forum for exactly his position (finance journalist with government contacts) just in case you need to ditch him. (One word of advice, check beforehand whether your own freelancer is on the same forum, especially when there's a chance he might read your job ad within 10 minutes of your agreeing to his proposal.)
7. Save money by cutting him loose at just the right time. A great way to leverage your finances (and maybe the company's too) is to cut your freelancer loose when the opportune moment arises. A good scenario: when the company starts to owe a substantial amount, in the tens of thousands. What you'll need to look out for is that rare moment when he becomes too cheeky. If one of your staff sends a few harmlessly insulting emails,
If anyone asks, you simply wash it as a freelancer insisting on his precious work being published, and no self-respecting editor can be expected to be dictated to by a somewhat unprofessional freelancer.
8. Play the independent contractor card - it's a doozy. If your freelancer fights back - and the odds are he won't, he doesn't want others in the industry to think he's a troublemaker (it's such a fickle business) - remember that there's no way he can afford a legal remedy so the odds are ever in your favour!
Even though the volume of work may be to such a degree and such regularity that a freelancer could claim tacit employment (especially for a proposal agreed to over email for an indeterminate number of contributions, such as this for example:)
Of course, on the off chance that your freelancer risks all, and sticks to his guns, you might find yourself with a bit of explaining to do. There's an easy way around that, just leave (or say you're resigning in public, it sounds better).
Perry still has a month's notice to settle into new circumstances before she leaves Brainstorm for good at the end of June. Notice is another thing that freelancers don't deserve, and why should they - they can be fired with "immediate effect". As editor, you have a loaded gun, so you might as well use it.
Perry's choice is somewhat interesting: she has chosen to do something editors might find strange: become the freelancer you've loved to hate. And if that's the case, just remember to update your social media status to make it official (don't mention the magazine you used to work for anywhere). Now you're no longer "Editor" but "freelancer". And be sure to keep that disclaimer up about whose opinions are out in force.
Prometheus Explained - SPOILERS GALORE
WARNING: If you have not watched Prometheus and are intending to see it, you are STRONGLY ADVISED to not read any further as this will seriously degrade your movie experience.
I watched Prometheus for the 2nd time over the weekend. I was very surprised at the drop in tension second-time round, something Prometheus doesn't share with its cousins in the franchise (ALIEN, ALIENS and ALIEN RESURRECTION).
Despite watching the film for the 2nd time, some aspects have bothered me. I've done a little research which has had a surprising result (beyond the nature of the possible answers themselves). In my first review, I made a bold statement - calling Prometheus 'filmmaking at its finest' and 'possibly the best science fiction film I've ever seen.' On second viewing, I wondered whether I was high on something when I wrote that. Some folks on Facebook have echoed less than stellar praise, like this: "Prometheus. Same old story, different planet. Slightly disappointed. Visually acceptable. But that's just my opinion."
While I don't agree with that assessment, I did begin to doubt my own high praise. But the interesting thing about researching some of the questions I had was discovering the rich fabric of forums and factoids associated with the mythos of this story. It's great to see so much discussion, curiosity and conjecture surrounding this - admittedly incredible - story. To be honest, one of my dreams is to publish a film-worthy title, with the proviso that it gets people talking, perhaps inspires change, even stimulates improvements in our collective psychology and behaviour. Promethesus does exactly this. Prometheus succeeds by being something exceedingly rare in modern cinema - an intelligent film. There are three recent films which have achieved the almost impossible - which is to be runaway box office successes, and be brilliant and sincere in their messages. These are Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, Jim Cameron's AVATAR, and Scott's Prometheus.
To be perfectly honest, Prometheus hasn't done incredibly well at the box office - so far it is trading punches with the likes of Madagascar 3, and losing. Prometheus opened with a credible $50 million in the States, about $10 million behind the animated circus animal franchise.
But I do remain effusive about a film that challenges its audience in so many ways, and courageously puts to us some of the most difficult questions we face. Without further adieu, let's look at some of them [SPOILER ALERT]:
1. What happens during the opening montage? Does the humanoid knowingly commit suicide, what's going on?
Firstly, ritual appears to be part of the process - something which feels right based on the humanoid's monkish attire, but also because the same ritual is hinted at later in the film when the android David activates a holographic display. Here's another view that I found helpful:
It's never revealed if Vickers is indeed a android, it's left ambiguous, although there are a few hints at her being synthetic. Therefore, it's up to the viewer to decide.
Evidence for the android theory; (1)She refers to Weyland as "Father". Weyland seems too old to be her father, with Vickers being too young to be his daughter. She may call Weyland father in the same way David refers to Weyland as "father", in the sense that she was made by and serves Weyland. (2) Vickers also appears to throw David against the wall with ease, which would seem strange if Vickers is indeed human. We see in Alien how hard it is to physically move an android, when Ash attempts to kill Ripley it takes two people to stop and restrain him. (3) The surgery-module in her escape pod only performs operations on males, as shown when Shaw attempts to perform a cesarean section, odd considering the point of such a device would be to heal injuries inflicted on Vickers or the entire crew (or possibly just for Weyland), suggesting that she doesn't need medical assistance. (4) While Vickers sleeps in a cryo-chamber for the trip and David doesn't; we are shown Ash in Alien to sleep in a cryo chamber as well; Ash was masquerading as human and so Vickers may have been doing the same. (5) She shows little or no emotion at the death of Weyland, although he is supposedly her father.
Evidence against android theory; (1) While Weyland might be considered too old to be her biological father, it's not impossible nor unheard of for men in their later years to father children with younger women; it's also possible that she had spent a good part of her life in cryo sleep while Weyland was not, so she could very well be older than she has aged. (2) She sleeps In a cryogenic chamber, which an android would not need; it's possible that she is designed and instructed to act like a human, especially if she is there to carry out the will of Weyland discreetly. Sleeping in a cryogenic chamber would be good cover and would remove any suspicion. (3) Vicker's first appearance has her recovering from cryo-sleep doing sit ups and just trying to work off the "cryo hangover". When the only person awake was David, therefore she wouldn't need to pretend to be human at this point if she was indeed an Android. (4) It's implied that she has sex with Janek, if she was an Android she likely wouldn't have done this. (5) She shows strong emotions such as anger and despair. She becomes angry with David and panics when towards the end of the film. She shows frustration and exhaustion when she is running to her escape pod, this wouldn't be present if she was an android like David. (6) Vickers is also visually annoyed when Weyland mentions that David is like a "son" to him; if she is human then it's very understandable that she is jealous of Weyland relationship with David. (7) She becomes angry with Weyland's quest to beat death, which suggests that she is human and capable of showing emotion rather than David blind desire to follow his orders. (8) Vickers mentions that back on Earth, her and Weyland constantly argued about who was in charge of the company. It seems unlikely that Weyland would leave his company to be run by an Android. It seems to stand that Vickers was actually his biological daughter. In Weyland's hologram at the beginning, he said David was the closest thing he ever had to a son. He never says he didn't have any daughters.
I watched Prometheus for the 2nd time over the weekend. I was very surprised at the drop in tension second-time round, something Prometheus doesn't share with its cousins in the franchise (ALIEN, ALIENS and ALIEN RESURRECTION).
Despite watching the film for the 2nd time, some aspects have bothered me. I've done a little research which has had a surprising result (beyond the nature of the possible answers themselves). In my first review, I made a bold statement - calling Prometheus 'filmmaking at its finest' and 'possibly the best science fiction film I've ever seen.' On second viewing, I wondered whether I was high on something when I wrote that. Some folks on Facebook have echoed less than stellar praise, like this: "Prometheus. Same old story, different planet. Slightly disappointed. Visually acceptable. But that's just my opinion."
While I don't agree with that assessment, I did begin to doubt my own high praise. But the interesting thing about researching some of the questions I had was discovering the rich fabric of forums and factoids associated with the mythos of this story. It's great to see so much discussion, curiosity and conjecture surrounding this - admittedly incredible - story. To be honest, one of my dreams is to publish a film-worthy title, with the proviso that it gets people talking, perhaps inspires change, even stimulates improvements in our collective psychology and behaviour. Promethesus does exactly this. Prometheus succeeds by being something exceedingly rare in modern cinema - an intelligent film. There are three recent films which have achieved the almost impossible - which is to be runaway box office successes, and be brilliant and sincere in their messages. These are Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, Jim Cameron's AVATAR, and Scott's Prometheus.
To be perfectly honest, Prometheus hasn't done incredibly well at the box office - so far it is trading punches with the likes of Madagascar 3, and losing. Prometheus opened with a credible $50 million in the States, about $10 million behind the animated circus animal franchise.
But I do remain effusive about a film that challenges its audience in so many ways, and courageously puts to us some of the most difficult questions we face. Without further adieu, let's look at some of them [SPOILER ALERT]:
Firstly, ritual appears to be part of the process - something which feels right based on the humanoid's monkish attire, but also because the same ritual is hinted at later in the film when the android David activates a holographic display. Here's another view that I found helpful:
It can be assumed that the Humanoid or "Space Jockey" at the beginning of the movie was standing on Earth, and the liquid that he drank was probably the same matter that David discovers (when he says "big things have small beginnings"). Supposedly this liquid dematerialises the Space Jockey's DNA which eventually combined with Earth's water gives rise to all living beings on earth, including humans. Why the Space Jockeys couldn't have extracted DNA from stem cells or even just manufactured it, remains a mystery. One theory is that that along with the mythology behind the movie title, the space jockey standing on Earth stole the technology from the biological weapons seen on LV-223, to create new life instead of destruction. This lone dissident having no means to add the space jockey/human genome to the liquid compound had to make do with what he had; his own body. Concept art of the film showed an extended opening scene involving two Space Jockeys. An elder SJ gives a younger looking SJ the cup of black liquid in a ritualistic manner. So the opening scene is part of a ritual to begin the creation of organic life on any given planet. The scene is rumored to have been shot so it may end up on the home release as behind the scenes or deleted footage.
While the idea that a lone jockey stole technology to create life, rather than destroy it, sounds interesting, I'm not sure if it has any merit. For starters, there was no life on Earth at the time. And secondly, the ship hovering overhead implies that others knew what he was doing, and approved. I suspect that it was a ritual act, which was done on perhaps a few planets as a form of 'seeding' the galaxy experiment. The aspect that is perhaps not done very well, or which implies something different, is the surprise and pain the humanoid experiences during his death throes. You would think a conscious decision to sacrifice oneself would be associated with a more serene, almost expressionless decomposition.
2. Is Vickers an Android?
I didn't come up with this question, but came across it and found the reasoning compelling. This is why Scott's film is so powerful and compelling, because obviously a lot of thought has gone into the details.
It's never revealed if Vickers is indeed a android, it's left ambiguous, although there are a few hints at her being synthetic. Therefore, it's up to the viewer to decide.Evidence for the android theory; (1)She refers to Weyland as "Father". Weyland seems too old to be her father, with Vickers being too young to be his daughter. She may call Weyland father in the same way David refers to Weyland as "father", in the sense that she was made by and serves Weyland. (2) Vickers also appears to throw David against the wall with ease, which would seem strange if Vickers is indeed human. We see in Alien how hard it is to physically move an android, when Ash attempts to kill Ripley it takes two people to stop and restrain him. (3) The surgery-module in her escape pod only performs operations on males, as shown when Shaw attempts to perform a cesarean section, odd considering the point of such a device would be to heal injuries inflicted on Vickers or the entire crew (or possibly just for Weyland), suggesting that she doesn't need medical assistance. (4) While Vickers sleeps in a cryo-chamber for the trip and David doesn't; we are shown Ash in Alien to sleep in a cryo chamber as well; Ash was masquerading as human and so Vickers may have been doing the same. (5) She shows little or no emotion at the death of Weyland, although he is supposedly her father.
Evidence against android theory; (1) While Weyland might be considered too old to be her biological father, it's not impossible nor unheard of for men in their later years to father children with younger women; it's also possible that she had spent a good part of her life in cryo sleep while Weyland was not, so she could very well be older than she has aged. (2) She sleeps In a cryogenic chamber, which an android would not need; it's possible that she is designed and instructed to act like a human, especially if she is there to carry out the will of Weyland discreetly. Sleeping in a cryogenic chamber would be good cover and would remove any suspicion. (3) Vicker's first appearance has her recovering from cryo-sleep doing sit ups and just trying to work off the "cryo hangover". When the only person awake was David, therefore she wouldn't need to pretend to be human at this point if she was indeed an Android. (4) It's implied that she has sex with Janek, if she was an Android she likely wouldn't have done this. (5) She shows strong emotions such as anger and despair. She becomes angry with David and panics when towards the end of the film. She shows frustration and exhaustion when she is running to her escape pod, this wouldn't be present if she was an android like David. (6) Vickers is also visually annoyed when Weyland mentions that David is like a "son" to him; if she is human then it's very understandable that she is jealous of Weyland relationship with David. (7) She becomes angry with Weyland's quest to beat death, which suggests that she is human and capable of showing emotion rather than David blind desire to follow his orders. (8) Vickers mentions that back on Earth, her and Weyland constantly argued about who was in charge of the company. It seems unlikely that Weyland would leave his company to be run by an Android. It seems to stand that Vickers was actually his biological daughter. In Weyland's hologram at the beginning, he said David was the closest thing he ever had to a son. He never says he didn't have any daughters.
It is interesting that Vickers emerges fairly strong from her Cryo-sleep, has no sympathy for Christmas trees, and doesn't hesitate to immolate one of her staff. That said, she appears a tad too passionate and emotional (given the very limited scope of her feelings for others) to be a robot.
3. Why is there always a robot on board?
Fans of the franchise may be surprised to learn that the synethetic's names run alphabetically through the series. So the first film starts with 'A'sh, followed by 'B'ishop, then Winona Ryder as 'C'all and now 'D'avid. As to the point of having a synethetic on board - all of the ALIEN films excel in having us confront our innate lack of humanity. The alien in question is not really the monster without, but the monster within (which is literally in us, and is us). It is this rich repertoire of metaphor that gives the series its raw power. The perhaps never more so than now do Scott's sentiments resonate - the psychopathic greed of the company, the danger of unbridled ambition allied with advanced technology, the folly and fragility of human endeavours when venturing into the unknown, and then the incredible (but perhaps ultimately fickle) fight for survival. There's a final point worth making given this framework - and that is the evolution of complexity, whether it is the evolution of a monster, a company, a human being and his toys, or - perhaps most pressingly - the evolution of systemic failure. How do things fall apart?
4. Why did Janek help Shaw?
This is another question that didn't particularly bother me, but is nevertheless worth asking. Here's an interesting take on that:
At first glance it seems odd that Janek, his pilots Chance and Ravel would sacrifice themselves so willingly. Janek does tell Elizabeth Shaw that he will do anything to stop the Engineers, it is likely that he also told Chance and Ravel his feelings off screen. In addition, their motivation is not only because of Shaw's brief convincing argument but because they have nothing to lose from the time they left Earth, effectively on borrowed time. This is hinted when Meredith Vickers asks David if anyone died during the hyper sleep, substantiating that Janek and crew knew they may not even reach LV-223 alive in the first place. Therefore, for Janek and crew to stop the Engineers spaceship using the Prometheus, especially given their military background, for the greater good of mankind was not beyond possibility.
There's a lot more to say, and speculate, but for the sake of brevity, I'm going to conclude here with this final paragraph. I maintain that Prometheus is deserving of the accolade 'finest science fiction' ever made by virtue of the absolute visual beauty and the strong currents of intelligence that permeate this film. Screenrant.com's Ben Kendrick writes similarly: "Prometheus delivers a sci-fi experience and story that is nearly unmatched in a modern movie theater experience..." Kendrick adds that Prometheus delivers a plot that has horrors "with Earth-shattering consequences for humanity." This imaginative look at our origins (and perhaps our destiny) is very rare in modern cinema. Aren't we supposed to go to the movies to escape our conundrums, not confront them? It is impossible not to watch Prometheus and not feel at turns extremely uncomfortable. I would say that is exactly how we ought to feel inside the cinema, and outside, in our present circumstances in the real world. And if we do, perhaps we can be propelled to doing something constructive to change the course of human history, for the better.
Read my review here.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Thursday, June 07, 2012
Diary of a Sub 40 Minute 10K #3
So how to explain it? I suppose it is a combination of too much running, and too hard running. Whilst the previous week's record effort was achieved on 4 runs (including the record run), and an easy LSD of just 10km, this week I did 5 runs including a hard 12km+ LSD, a run in Vibrams and at least two hard "easy" runs during the week (climbing Albrecht on one day, and Lucas Steyn the next).
The long run on Saturday also included a heavy drag and a very steep climb.
On Sunday morning before the run I could feel my calves were sore and stiff. It was a particularly cold morning, and I'd had a terrible sleep, but I reckoned the record was worth gunning for. Shane headed off a few seconds before I did, and I basically paced just behind him until 2km. We hit 1km at 5:10 and he turned at 3km on 15:30, me 8 seconds later. From the graph you can see my HR reached the 160 level close to 6 minutes. But we had run up against a stiff headwind, and given the strain my legs were already under, that was an unwelcome load.
On the way back Shane pulled away to about 20 seconds, and I started gritting my teeth for a final surge in the last 300 metres. I was - I must admit - trying to close the gap to Shane. What was undoubtedly also a factor was the length of my stride in the final 1-1.5km. But given that my max HR was at just 167, I presumed that I had something left in the tank, and so was determined to burn it. The curious thing was as I was about to hit the gas, I felt a stabbing pain at the back of my right leg. Note, I hadn't quite hit my stride, I had just decided to, when the pain hit. I had to pull up and walk. I walked, tried to run again and repeated this two or three times. I finally limped the last few metres, finishing in just under 30 minutes (Shane finished in a touch under 29 minutes). To say that I was - and am disappointed - is putting it lightly.
But this brings one to the important question - how do you respond when a clearly stated goal, and an execution that has gone according to plan is suddenly, and obviously frustrated? This is important in sport as it is in life. The answer, I think, is that one has to focus on what you can do. Not to wallow in what is lost. Triathlon has taught me when one part of you hurts, train the other part. In terms of a running injury like this, it's possible that cycling is a mild enough exertion to not aggravate the injury, and if it is, then swimming. It's important - when pursuing physical excellence, to maintain fitness. Injury may frustrate one or a few paths, but there are always alternatives one can do. Gym. Yoga. Walks etc.
In my case, since I've also felt a cold looming, I've decided to give myself a few days completely off. I'll possibly run again on Friday or Saturday next. If it still niggles - what can I do? Swim. Gym. Walk. If it proves to be a problem I'll have to get some physio to sort it out. But two good things have emerged from this experience:
1. The realisation that I'm mentally tough enough to push myself hard (but also hard enough to get injured).
2. I know now to maintain the program I was on before last week, which was dominated by many slow, easy runs.
On the other hand, I also have to realise that I'm not invulnerable. I have to push gradually harder, as certain muscle sections are quite week. If I can continue to lose weight and gain strength, the latter impasse can be overcome. Stay tuned to find out how that happens.
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
SHOOT Reviews: Prometheus 3D
Digging Deep in Deep Space - by Nick van der Leek
I was lucky. I didn't go into this flick with the mindset that it was an Alien/s Prequel. It was enough that Ridley Scott was the director, and all other expectations were left at the door. Just as well, because if you are going to go in comparing Prometheus to Alien, or trying to tie loose ends between the two flicks, you're going to sabotage your own experience. Those who did this, and I think there are many, probably drove home giving kudos to great visuals, but believed - incorrectly - the plot was poorly conceived. They're giving Prometheus a resigned 7 or 8/10. For once, I believe they're wrong. I believe, more than simply because I choose to - that Prometheus is near flawless film making - whatever the consensus of the critics. And so it deserves a near flawless score. 9.5/10.
The last movie that earned these sort of grades from me was Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight. Taught, beautifully rendered, intelligent, deep and disturbing. Prometheus is all these and more. Despite the vivid scenery (the crisp HD standard in the trailers is maintained throughout the film), Scott probes the sort of territory no other director has been brave enough to, bar James Cameron perhaps.
"Where do we come from?" "Where do we go when we die?" And then the cracker: "What will you do to find the answers?" If these questions sound corny, re-read the last one a few times, quietly, to yourself. Perhaps turn off your phone and consider for a moment a dead relative, and think about that last question again. While the critics might be throwing out a lot of fodder to the public along the lines that Prometheus 'sort've delivers', that 'it's a fantastic attempt BUT overly ambitious blah blah blah' - don't listen. Let's face it - when it comes to beliefs, everyone is an expert, and yet none of us seems certain of anything. But be certain of this - Prometheus kicks up a shitstorm in the face of every other sci fi flick. It's that good. And in its wisdom it asks that we ask questions rather than dishing up answers.
Prometheus - even via its nomenclature - boldly explores this territory. Death, and the creator I mean. Michael Fassbender plays David, a most memorable character. He makes a cryptic comment as the spaceship swoops over the moon (exactly where it is is not disclosed). "There is nothing in the desert," he says, "and no man needs nothing." Once again, if those words don't resonate with you, the film is perhaps a tad deeper than you're prepared for. In fact the metaphors fly thick and fast in Prometheus, but much of it gets lost in translation, lost in the storms, as it does in life.
On many occasions I found myself mentally projecting into the story: "Why don't these people work as a team? It is because each one has their own agenda that things fall apart."
The same is true of human endeavours on earth, in everything from economics - particularly in Europe, but well beyond those urbane confines - to the energy conundrum. Technology has gifted the Prometheus team with similarly urbane comforts. Yet the technology falls apart with spectacular ease when the simplest complication sets in - a dust storm, changes in humidity, a few globs of goo erupting.
While Charlize Theron sometimes strikes me as a ham actor (her performance in Snow White and the Huntsman wasn't great) in Prometheus she's perfectly poised as the ice cold, ruthlessly calculating Meredith Vickers. Her demeanour is so void of emotion, the ship's captain Janek (Idros Elba) asks her at one point: "Are you a robot?" South Africans, dizzy with Goodman Gallery angst, will smirk at her answer. And yet, as she is wont to do, Theron gives Vickers just enough humanity that we are compelled to feel sorry for her...but I digress.
Early in the flick, just as I have done in this review, Scott provides what seems like a bizarre montage or two. World War II reruns, scratchy digitised dreams - it's enough for hardened cynics to question whether Scott really did direct Prometheus. But all the asides, let me assure you, are valuable and meaningful. God (and the devil after all) is in the details, a point David emphasises when he says, ominously, "Big things have small beginnings." The point is made at the outset - that we choose our beliefs, and lifetimes turn and evolve around significant arcs as a result. And that is why it is triply disturbing when the Swedish actress - Noomi Rapace - whom we saw in the 2009 Girl with the Dargon Tattoo, screams:
Elizabeth Shaw: My God, we were so wrong...
It may be easy for some in a cinema, chomping on popcorn, to snub Scott's film for lacking in viscera and violence (I don't think it lacks quality, perhaps quantity). But those who concentrate will be rewarded. What, after all, is more mortifying than discovering that our cherished beliefs are horribly off track. What is more terrifying in everyday life than the discovery that we made a mistake, and a big one? And when our most profound beliefs are derailed, there's a recipe for inner catastrophe. And what makes it particularly trying is that there is no comfort from that sort of truth. Prometheus - through Rapace's sensitive, authentic portrayal of Shaw, the scientist-believer - demonstrates the difficulty of facing up to inescapable (and let's face it, very hard) realities.
It is ironic that movies provide escapism, and some, the best of them, provide a safe place for experiemental escapism, where our contemporary travails are disguised in life and death struggles on faraway worlds. We can indulge our discomforts there, even if we lack the courage to consider how perfectly they reflect back to our modern world on Earth. On Earth, the Prometheus mythos suggests, as it is in Scott's scary, star strewn heavens. The desert of the real on distant moons is the same desert that we encounter all too frequently on Earth. Places that do not nourish us. Yet places filled with meaning.
"Is there a god? Is there a heaven?" What if we set about the task to find out and the answers were revealed? Would we even be prepared to go there? Rapace - an adequate replacement for Ripley - provides a potent subject to demonstrate both the inexorable fragility of life, but simultaneously, the grit, the flame-filled dragon in our hearts that refuses to be extinguished without a fight.
Mankind, it is true, is gifted with resilience. This has evolved over a long time, and we can put it into our back pocket. The rest is more dicey. Technology hasn't had time to breathe, we haven't been able to kick the can down the road for long enough to see what some of our ideas are really like to live with. We don't know what's ultimately a Pandora's Box and what isn't (from GM crops and carbohydrates to nuclear energy).
Peter Weyland: 100,000 BC: stone tools. 4,000 BC: the wheel. 900 AD: gunpowder - bit of a game changer, that one. 19th century: eureka, the lightbulb! 20th century: the automobile, television, nuclear weapons, spacecrafts, Internet. 21st century: biotech, nanotech, fusion and fission and M theory - and THAT, was just the first decade! We are now three months into the year of our Lord, 2023. At this moment of our civilization, we can create cybernetic individuals, who in just a few short years will be completely indistinguishable from us. Which leads to an obvious conclusion: WE are the gods now.
It may be shocking for some well meaning folk to discover that right alongside faith, lies self destruction. That blind ambition risks awakening a dragon - perhaps inside of us, or someone else - or one that is simply dormant in the universe - that cannot be slain. Least of all by us.
At turns Prometheus seems to wander into the same territory of the ALIEN franchise, and perhaps some fanboys were hoping for Part 5 (or is it 6) of those face offs. But we already know what happens. Thankfully, Scott does and does not go down that familiar rabbit hole. While Scott does carefully PING some of the necessary ALIEN iconography (and I reckon he does so with great style and finesse) he is also really making an entirely separate flick. That, in itself, was a bold move from the old legend. I feel he succeeds, and grandly. If Weyland suffers from hubris, perhaps some of it rubbed off on me, for I feel this flick is perhaps the greatest science fiction film ever, and one of the top films ever produced. In every department. Story. Acting. Pace. Visual effects. Score. Creativity. Intelligence.
For the 8/10 crowd - consider this. Right now the world is asking the very questions Scott refers back to his audience. Atheism is on the rise. Thanks to technology, and the spread of ideas through social media, faith is rapidly seeing itself substituted with science. In South Africa, sites like News24 (the 'most commented' section) are dominated on a daily basis with rigorous debates on the subject of belief vs evolution. "Who made us? Where did we come from?" - these thoughts that occur so frequently on News24 form the high resolution fabric of Prometheus. In the rest of the world, questions of belief are also gaining momentum. Books (The God Delusion, Letters to a Christian Nation, God is not Great) are being circulated by the likes of Dawkins, Sam Harris and Hitchens all adding to a chorous challenging our beliefs. At the same time, our conventional wisdom - how we run in the world (the economic systems, the energy systems) - is also being challenged. And undermining all of this, are proft-centred companies and militarised governments who couldn't care less. Prometheus addresses this Zeitgeist in its entirety. As I say, if it doesn't disturb you, you haven't been concentrating.
A few final points to note in Prometheus - when Shaw's silver necklace (a cross) is removed to facilitate a particular procedure (and an incredibly harrowing scene follows), the symbolism couldn't be more clear. Do we have to give up our faith, our beliefs, to cut the monster out of our selves? Is our faith and the monster the same? And when Shaw asks for the crucifix back, David - justifiably, but perhaps discompassionately - replies: "Even now, when you know, you want it back?" Or words to that effect.
Yes, the choices we make in our beliefs are reinforced time and again, because they should be. That's how it is in real life. Living along the same circles and ruts ordained by our beliefs. It's an important question today, because our beliefs will, ultimately, determine whether we survive much longer in the universe or not. Weyland - like so many present day corporate billionaires - may believe we are gods, and that we do have God-like power. In a general sense, this has been true ever since our discovery of fire...
Peter Weyland: T.E. Lawrence, eponymously of Arabia but very much an Englishman, favoured pinching a burning match between his fingers to put it out. When asked by his colleague William Potter to reveal his trick, how is it he effectively extinguished the flame without hurting himself whatsoever, Lawrence just smiled and said, "The trick, Potter, is not minding it hurts." The fire that danced at the end of that match was a gift from the Titan Prometheus, a gift that he stole from the gods. And Prometheus was caught, and brought to justice for his theft. The gods, well, you might say they overreacted a little. The poor man was tied to a rock, as an eagle ripped through his belly and ate his liver over and over, day after day, ad infinitum. All because he gave us fire. Our first true gift of technology, fire...
Of course, most human beings do mind when it hurts. And many of technologies benefits hurt. Pollution, WMD's, derivatives. It turns out that our search for god may be both naive and pre-mature. If Scott's version counts for anything, our DNA is interwoven with that of the monster. Around us are monsters that look like people, and those that consume us. Often, they consumes us from within. We always knew that, didn't we? That our worst enemy was always ourselves. And at the same time, God is us (or in us). The solution lies in looking at ourselves, within, and without (though putting religious sentimentality on ice). Scott suggests that our collaborations with cold, hostile logic, and scientific (but human) endeavours, may yet take us places in the universe worth going. I hope he's right.
Meredith Vickers: If you go down there, you're going to die.
The last movie that earned these sort of grades from me was Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight. Taught, beautifully rendered, intelligent, deep and disturbing. Prometheus is all these and more. Despite the vivid scenery (the crisp HD standard in the trailers is maintained throughout the film), Scott probes the sort of territory no other director has been brave enough to, bar James Cameron perhaps.
Prometheus - even via its nomenclature - boldly explores this territory. Death, and the creator I mean. Michael Fassbender plays David, a most memorable character. He makes a cryptic comment as the spaceship swoops over the moon (exactly where it is is not disclosed). "There is nothing in the desert," he says, "and no man needs nothing." Once again, if those words don't resonate with you, the film is perhaps a tad deeper than you're prepared for. In fact the metaphors fly thick and fast in Prometheus, but much of it gets lost in translation, lost in the storms, as it does in life.
On many occasions I found myself mentally projecting into the story: "Why don't these people work as a team? It is because each one has their own agenda that things fall apart."
The same is true of human endeavours on earth, in everything from economics - particularly in Europe, but well beyond those urbane confines - to the energy conundrum. Technology has gifted the Prometheus team with similarly urbane comforts. Yet the technology falls apart with spectacular ease when the simplest complication sets in - a dust storm, changes in humidity, a few globs of goo erupting.
While Charlize Theron sometimes strikes me as a ham actor (her performance in Snow White and the Huntsman wasn't great) in Prometheus she's perfectly poised as the ice cold, ruthlessly calculating Meredith Vickers. Her demeanour is so void of emotion, the ship's captain Janek (Idros Elba) asks her at one point: "Are you a robot?" South Africans, dizzy with Goodman Gallery angst, will smirk at her answer. And yet, as she is wont to do, Theron gives Vickers just enough humanity that we are compelled to feel sorry for her...but I digress.
Early in the flick, just as I have done in this review, Scott provides what seems like a bizarre montage or two. World War II reruns, scratchy digitised dreams - it's enough for hardened cynics to question whether Scott really did direct Prometheus. But all the asides, let me assure you, are valuable and meaningful. God (and the devil after all) is in the details, a point David emphasises when he says, ominously, "Big things have small beginnings." The point is made at the outset - that we choose our beliefs, and lifetimes turn and evolve around significant arcs as a result. And that is why it is triply disturbing when the Swedish actress - Noomi Rapace - whom we saw in the 2009 Girl with the Dargon Tattoo, screams:
It may be easy for some in a cinema, chomping on popcorn, to snub Scott's film for lacking in viscera and violence (I don't think it lacks quality, perhaps quantity). But those who concentrate will be rewarded. What, after all, is more mortifying than discovering that our cherished beliefs are horribly off track. What is more terrifying in everyday life than the discovery that we made a mistake, and a big one? And when our most profound beliefs are derailed, there's a recipe for inner catastrophe. And what makes it particularly trying is that there is no comfort from that sort of truth. Prometheus - through Rapace's sensitive, authentic portrayal of Shaw, the scientist-believer - demonstrates the difficulty of facing up to inescapable (and let's face it, very hard) realities.
It is ironic that movies provide escapism, and some, the best of them, provide a safe place for experiemental escapism, where our contemporary travails are disguised in life and death struggles on faraway worlds. We can indulge our discomforts there, even if we lack the courage to consider how perfectly they reflect back to our modern world on Earth. On Earth, the Prometheus mythos suggests, as it is in Scott's scary, star strewn heavens. The desert of the real on distant moons is the same desert that we encounter all too frequently on Earth. Places that do not nourish us. Yet places filled with meaning.
"Is there a god? Is there a heaven?" What if we set about the task to find out and the answers were revealed? Would we even be prepared to go there? Rapace - an adequate replacement for Ripley - provides a potent subject to demonstrate both the inexorable fragility of life, but simultaneously, the grit, the flame-filled dragon in our hearts that refuses to be extinguished without a fight.
Mankind, it is true, is gifted with resilience. This has evolved over a long time, and we can put it into our back pocket. The rest is more dicey. Technology hasn't had time to breathe, we haven't been able to kick the can down the road for long enough to see what some of our ideas are really like to live with. We don't know what's ultimately a Pandora's Box and what isn't (from GM crops and carbohydrates to nuclear energy).
Peter Weyland: 100,000 BC: stone tools. 4,000 BC: the wheel. 900 AD: gunpowder - bit of a game changer, that one. 19th century: eureka, the lightbulb! 20th century: the automobile, television, nuclear weapons, spacecrafts, Internet. 21st century: biotech, nanotech, fusion and fission and M theory - and THAT, was just the first decade! We are now three months into the year of our Lord, 2023. At this moment of our civilization, we can create cybernetic individuals, who in just a few short years will be completely indistinguishable from us. Which leads to an obvious conclusion: WE are the gods now.
It may be shocking for some well meaning folk to discover that right alongside faith, lies self destruction. That blind ambition risks awakening a dragon - perhaps inside of us, or someone else - or one that is simply dormant in the universe - that cannot be slain. Least of all by us.At turns Prometheus seems to wander into the same territory of the ALIEN franchise, and perhaps some fanboys were hoping for Part 5 (or is it 6) of those face offs. But we already know what happens. Thankfully, Scott does and does not go down that familiar rabbit hole. While Scott does carefully PING some of the necessary ALIEN iconography (and I reckon he does so with great style and finesse) he is also really making an entirely separate flick. That, in itself, was a bold move from the old legend. I feel he succeeds, and grandly. If Weyland suffers from hubris, perhaps some of it rubbed off on me, for I feel this flick is perhaps the greatest science fiction film ever, and one of the top films ever produced. In every department. Story. Acting. Pace. Visual effects. Score. Creativity. Intelligence.
For the 8/10 crowd - consider this. Right now the world is asking the very questions Scott refers back to his audience. Atheism is on the rise. Thanks to technology, and the spread of ideas through social media, faith is rapidly seeing itself substituted with science. In South Africa, sites like News24 (the 'most commented' section) are dominated on a daily basis with rigorous debates on the subject of belief vs evolution. "Who made us? Where did we come from?" - these thoughts that occur so frequently on News24 form the high resolution fabric of Prometheus. In the rest of the world, questions of belief are also gaining momentum. Books (The God Delusion, Letters to a Christian Nation, God is not Great) are being circulated by the likes of Dawkins, Sam Harris and Hitchens all adding to a chorous challenging our beliefs. At the same time, our conventional wisdom - how we run in the world (the economic systems, the energy systems) - is also being challenged. And undermining all of this, are proft-centred companies and militarised governments who couldn't care less. Prometheus addresses this Zeitgeist in its entirety. As I say, if it doesn't disturb you, you haven't been concentrating.
A few final points to note in Prometheus - when Shaw's silver necklace (a cross) is removed to facilitate a particular procedure (and an incredibly harrowing scene follows), the symbolism couldn't be more clear. Do we have to give up our faith, our beliefs, to cut the monster out of our selves? Is our faith and the monster the same? And when Shaw asks for the crucifix back, David - justifiably, but perhaps discompassionately - replies: "Even now, when you know, you want it back?" Or words to that effect.
Yes, the choices we make in our beliefs are reinforced time and again, because they should be. That's how it is in real life. Living along the same circles and ruts ordained by our beliefs. It's an important question today, because our beliefs will, ultimately, determine whether we survive much longer in the universe or not. Weyland - like so many present day corporate billionaires - may believe we are gods, and that we do have God-like power. In a general sense, this has been true ever since our discovery of fire...
Peter Weyland: T.E. Lawrence, eponymously of Arabia but very much an Englishman, favoured pinching a burning match between his fingers to put it out. When asked by his colleague William Potter to reveal his trick, how is it he effectively extinguished the flame without hurting himself whatsoever, Lawrence just smiled and said, "The trick, Potter, is not minding it hurts." The fire that danced at the end of that match was a gift from the Titan Prometheus, a gift that he stole from the gods. And Prometheus was caught, and brought to justice for his theft. The gods, well, you might say they overreacted a little. The poor man was tied to a rock, as an eagle ripped through his belly and ate his liver over and over, day after day, ad infinitum. All because he gave us fire. Our first true gift of technology, fire...
Of course, most human beings do mind when it hurts. And many of technologies benefits hurt. Pollution, WMD's, derivatives. It turns out that our search for god may be both naive and pre-mature. If Scott's version counts for anything, our DNA is interwoven with that of the monster. Around us are monsters that look like people, and those that consume us. Often, they consumes us from within. We always knew that, didn't we? That our worst enemy was always ourselves. And at the same time, God is us (or in us). The solution lies in looking at ourselves, within, and without (though putting religious sentimentality on ice). Scott suggests that our collaborations with cold, hostile logic, and scientific (but human) endeavours, may yet take us places in the universe worth going. I hope he's right.
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