Black Mirror and Boyhood (2014)

Over the weekend I stumbled upon, well I finally got around to watching Black Mirror. I’ve heard great things about the show some people describe it as a Twilight Zone for science fiction stories.  It is a wonderful series the episodes all bring about some interesting topics, use of social media living in the cloud, wasting money, police state, politics and memory. They touch on a bunch of topics and they are all real fresh takes. Some of the stories felt like they could happen in a matter of years especially the first episode where we have a ransom video posted on Youtube for the safe return of a popular political figure, while others seems like they could happen in a matter of years where after her husband dies a wife get involved with a program that can simulate her husband based on what he wrote of the internet and making an algorithm so the program would respond like her husband.  It is a fantastic show and as is typical with most shows across the pond it is easy to catch up on the show since there are a small number of episodes. The producers are in talks about bringing the show to the United States, but the real question that this brings up is will it be a completely different show or will they just do US versions of the episodes that have been made already. I just don’t understand why it seems that most of television these days is simply redoing shows that were popular somewhere else

I also got around to seeing Boyhood, and I really wonder what people what the big deal with the movie is. Sure filming it over a twelve year period and watching the actors age in real time is an interesting thing and that’s a cool idea instead of having a different actor playing the same character or having heavy makeup to make them look older. One of the most remarkable things was that the film flowed really well, the years went by and we saw people grow up. Sure it’s bound to win the Oscar for Best Picture but I think that is mostly going to be for the span that it took to make the movie.  Although it will be cool if a independent film won Best Picture which will hopefully say to Hollywood that we want more films with actual substance. it should also inspire young filmmakers to try and make whatever films they want to and try to get them released.