movies – dangermouse.net

More rain; Indonesian horror film

The rain continues to be a problem in the region north of Sydney. Here in the city we had a gloomy, heavily overcast day, with some scattered showers. But north of us has been hit by record rainfalls, with some towns receiving almost 6 months worth of rain in just 48 hours. And there’s more to come, with the rain expected to be very heavy all the way to the weekend, with 24-hour falls of 200 mm or more. The Manning River has already reached a flood level above the record floods of 1929. Evacuation orders are in place for dozens of towns, and over 400 flood rescue operations have been carried out to get people to safety. Thankfully nobody has died.

Here’s a static story about the floods and rainfall, and there’s also a live feed of latest news (which may not be a permanent link).

Sydney is expecting up to 60 mm tomorrow, and another 50 mm on Friday. That’s heavy, and there’ll probably be some minor flash flooding in places, but hopefully nothing too serious.

Today I spent mostly huddled indoors, except for venturing out for a 5k run after breakfast. Oddly, I decided to take it easy with today’s run and set off at a more leisurely pace than I’ve been trying lately, and the run felt less exhausting, but I ended up clocking a time 15 seconds faster than my last few runs. I have no idea how this happens.

Last night I watched another Netflix movie: The Haunted Apartment: “Miss K”, which is an Indonesian horror film from 2024. I thought it was pretty decent, though with some flaws—not bad if you like Indonesian ghost horror. It had some good creepy moments, and an interesting plot with some unexpected turns. It’s not as tightly paced as slick US productions so it drags a little in places. There was an excellently robust fight scene near the end. Overall positive, though I’ve seen better.

I’ve noticed Indonesian films love the trope of the leading lady being in a relationship with a genuinely nice guy for 6 years, but still not ready to marry him because she’s worried he might turn out to be “a bad person”.

I other news: the new raised pedestrian crossing/speed bump outside our place looks almost finished. Construction was scheduled to last until Friday, but it looks like all the heavy work of digging and concrete laying has been done. There are new garden beds with empty soil lining the sides of the street around the crossing, which may be planted with some ground cover plants still. I’ll try and post a photo when it’s done, at some point when it’s not raining.

End of semester at university

Today was my last day heading into the university this semester, for the final class of the Data Engineering course. Students are well into their final assessment projects, and it was a pretty easy tutorial, answering questions and giving advice to a few teams of students. They’ll be submitting their projects on Friday and then next week I’ll be stuck into marking them. Then no more university until the third year Image Processing course begins at the end of July.

They are having graduation ceremonies at the university – in fact they have been for the past few weeks. I walk through the main building and they have a huge reception area with drinks and snacks for the graduates and their families, and about a dozen stalls set up for photography. And lots of people milling around – graduates in academic robes and hats, and their guests all dressed up in fine clothes. It’s actually a bit of an obstacle course to make my way through them to the lecture room.

The rest of the day was busy with online ethics classes, and making pizza for dinner after I got home from the university. it was a gloomy and chilly day, but the rain was really restricted to heavy overnight, and then returning this evening. There’s more coming in the next few days though.

Last night I finished watching the Netflix movie Cuckoo. It’s a German horror film and… is very German. Very weird, and I didn’t understand what was going on until 2/3 way through, and then there was no explanation or real resolution at the end. The core concept was kind of interesting, but frustrated by a lack of development.

Lots of running and walking

My wife took Scully to work this morning, giving me a free morning. I considered driving somewhere interesting, or going out for a nice lunch meal, but I decided to be good and do some exercise. The day was not too hot, while tomorrow is forecast to be very hot, so I wanted to avoid going on a run tomorrow. And so I took the opportunity today, and I also decided to push myself to 7.5k. I completed the distance in 43:15, about mid-range in the handful of times I’ve tried that distance.

After cooling off and changing clothes, I had some lunch at home (simple tomato bruschetta on home made sourdough), and then went out again, to walk to my wife’s work to pick up Scully and bring her home.

In the afternoon I wrote up my lesson outline for the new week’s worth of ethics classes, on the topic of Bio-Engineering. And then used it for the first class this evening.

I also spent some time doomscrolling all the executive orders that newly sworn-in President Trump signed in his first few hours. I don’t usually comment on politics online, but yikes, this is pretty much a living nightmare.

Speaking of which, I’m in the middle of watching Terminator: Dark Fate, which I’m enjoying so far. The first two Terminator movies were among my favourites when I was growing up. I haven’t seen any of the other media like the TV series or whatever it was, but I understand they are ignorable in the movie continuity of the first two movies and this one., which seems to flow nicely directly from them.

Weather today was pleasant and warm, but tomorrow is forecast to be very hot. Not looking forward to that.

New content today:

Finished the Hunger Games movies

Last night I finished watching the last half of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, completing the four movies in the series. It was okay, but I think the series peaked in the middle two movies. The ending of the last one was too predictable, even though it set itself up as a bit of a twist. Overall I enjoyed the worldbuilding, but there were some illogical things that stood out as unrealistic. Anyway, overall I enjoyed the series and think it was worth watching.

Today I completed a new Darths & Droids strip for tomorrow. I took Scully for a long walk. The weather was warm, but overcast and not as hot as the predicted 30°C. Rain has moved i this evening, but it’s not heavy yet, and it’s still quite warm outside, 20°C at almost 9pm right now. Tomorrow is supposed to be a maximum of just 18°C, and 40 mm of rain, so things will probably get wild and windy during the night.

This afternoon I finished writing up the session log of our last Dungeons & Dragons session. I shared it with my friends for checking of any errors or omissions. We’re planning the next session in mid-October.

I made broccoli frittata for dinner, before my three classes in a row – something easy for my wife to heat up and eat while I was busy.

New content today:

Kickstarter refund done!

That Kickstarter campaign from 2017 that I mentioned yesterday, that never delivered my backer rewards, but which reached out to offer a refund after 7 years….

I sent an email to them, with a screenshot of my pledge, with add-on items. It came to US$287. Quite an amount to be out of pocket for so long.

And they came through! They refunded not only the full amount, but they even rounded it up to an even US$300. I wasn’t expecting that.

In other news I did my 6 ethics classes online today. And my back seems to be better, so when my wife got home from work I went for a 5k run in the evening before it got dark. I took it easy and did a fairly slow time, also because it was significantly warmer than it usually is when I go running.

The only other thing to report is that I’m currently watching the Hunger Games movies on Netflix. I noticed them on there and decided to watch the first one on a whim. I had a rough idea what the story was about, and the plot arc of the first movie was pretty predictable, although I did enjoy the first half where it was leading up to the actual Hunger Games contest. I found the worldbuilding and the quirks of the characters interesting. The second half was more predictable and routine. Overall I rated it decent, but not great.

But then I watched the sequel, Catching Fire. Much better movie. There were some real unexpected things in there, and I got more drawn into the story. I’ve now also watched Mockingjay Part 1, which was good too, and am about to start Mockingjay Part 2.

New content today:

An uncategorisable movie?

A while back I heard about a new Korean movie called Parasite, which was described as a horror movie, and was extremely well received and getting excellent reviews. I like horror movies, so this sounded good, and I made a mental note to check it out if I got the opportunity.

It arrived on Netflix a while back, and I had a look at the information page. Which described it as a comedy, and a story about a family who scam their way into living in the home of a wealthy family. This didn’t sound like a horror movie at all! So I ignored it for a bit.

But recently some other things pushed the film back into my consciousness, including a passing mention somewhere that described it as a thriller. Now my curiosity was up. I Googled “Parasite movie” and tried to avoid anything that would spoil too much of the plot. One of the top suggested searches was “Is Parasite a horror movie?” I clicked that, and some of the summarised hits on the search page were even more curious. It seems that some people do describe Parasite as a horror movie, while others don’t, and there is some confusion among people asking as to whether it is a horror movie or not.

Well, this was all intriguing enough that I decided to start watching the movie last night. I got a bit over half way through before it got too late, and plan to watch the second half tonight. So far…. well, it’s entertaining enough and in fact I would describe it as a comedy more than anything else. There’s certainly no horror or even thriller aspect at all yet. Now I am wondering if there’s some bizarre twist in the second half that will come out of left field that turns the whole movie so far into some sort of psychological horror.

I’m avoiding any spoilers now, but I’ll be watching the second half right after writing this, so I’ll soon know what the story is. I just find it really bizarre how all over the place are the attempts at genre classification for this film.

In other news, today was, again, cold and rainy. There was a break in the rain after lunch and I took Scully for a walk, but luckily took an umbrella because the heavens opened again while we were out. I now have two pairs of shoes and socks that are so wet that I don’t want to put them on again. And they’re taking forever to dry because of the humidity.

My wife was out for most of the day at a felt-making class. She came home with a felt scarf with interesting patterns all over it. I used the time to work on some more Darths & Droids, trying to get ahead on the writing.

And then had three more ethics classes this evening, on the topic of “The Countryside”. I was asking the kids about the differences between life in the countryside, compared to the city. Usual answers were things about less shops, less people, less pollution, more nature, etc. Tonight one kid was from Korea and he said in the city, after school you have to go to Math Camp, or if you’re an adult you have to go to your second or third job. But in the countryside there won’t be any after-school tutoring, and you might just have one job as a farmer!

New content today:

A relaxing Monday off

With none of my usual Monday ethics classes, I had a relaxing day off. It was still very cold outside, and I just took Scully on a quick walk at lunchtime. I picked up a bunch of packing boxes from the post office to have handy for mailing off boxes of Magic: the Gathering cards tomorrow, when my eBay auctions finish. it started raining on the way back, and we had to rush so that my large bag full of cardboard boxes didn’t get too soggy. Fortunately we made it okay.

I worked on uploading Irregular Webcomic! strips and writing annotations for them. I did another stage of the Lego D&D set, but haven’t taken photos of it yet. I’ll share those tomorrow.

I do have photos of this weird fungus I spotted while out walking the other day though:

It’s an anemone stinkhorn, apparently a common fungus in eastern Australia. The brown slimy stuff is the fungal spores, ready for spreading. The fungus emits a rotting smell to attract flies, which brush on the spores and distribute them.

Apparently a spider thought it was a good hiding place to catch flies.

When my wife got home from work today we walked up to the shops. She wanted to get some snacks for Scully, and I took the opportunity to take our empty container to the bulk food store to fill it up with rye flour for sourdough. Speaking of which, I baked a loaf today, and also made pizza dough for dinner, topped with pesto, pumpkin, walnuts, and blobs of ricotta cheese.

A while back I put The Flash (the 2023 movie) on my Netflix to-watch list when it came out, thinking it might be okay. But I didn’t bother starting it because I feared it might be one of those bad superhero films. But yesterday I checked some (non-spoilery) reviews and found it was generally well received, so I started watching it last night. And yeah, really enjoying it so far. I’ll finish it off tonight.

New content today:

A potato-ey lunch treat

My Monday morning was full of ethics classes. I squeezed in an early lunch of a falafel wrap because I was getting hungry after an early breakfast. Then after my last class finished at 1pm I took Scully for a walk and we went past the fish & chip shop, and I felt like a bit of a treat. So I went in and ordered just three potato scallops – New South Wales terminology for slices of potato, battered and deep fried. Delicious and hot and oily and salty, just what I felt like to spoil myself.

We’re getting some nice days at the moment. Sunny, not too cold. If winter is more of this, I’ll be happy.

Last night I started watching World War Z, which I’ve never seen before. It really kicks off with a bang! I’m half way through and will finish it off tonight.

Tomorrow I visit Loreto at Kiribilli again to mentor my Year 9 students. The teacher has collected some questions from them and sent them to me. Very interesting! Two of them are asking specific questions about details of the atomic theory stuff I was going over two weeks ago, and the third asked a question about observing objects at cosmological distances. I’ve been thinking about how to approach discussing these and think I have a good plan for tomorrow.

New content today:

Felting

My wife did the most interesting thing today. I stayed a home and made some comics, while she went to an all-day course for beginners in felting – making things out of wool felt. She came home with a simple sheet which could be used as a table placemat, and also a very cool felt bowl. The bowl is shaped like a rough sphere about the size of a rockmelon, with an opening large enough to put a hand in. She said I could use it for putting things in during Dungeons & Dragons games. Like lollies or maybe game tokens. Or slips of paper with rumours on them – yeah, that’s a cool idea.

Scully was again off her food today and wanting to go outside several times to eat grass. This is the third time in three weeks. I was wondering if it might be the peanut butter we’ve been giving to her as a treat on Fridays – but she’s always had that and has never been sick from it before. My wife thinks it might be psychosomatic, caused by her going away to do these courses on Sundays and not being at home. Which might possibly have some truth to it, because Scully wolfed down her neglected breakfast once my wife arrived back home.

The weather continues to be nice, not too hot, and pleasantly cool in the evening and mornings. I went for another 5k run this morning, but deliberately took it easy after my exertion and fast time yesterday.

For dinner I made vegetable fajitas. It’s tough predicting exactly how much vegetables to chop and cook. Sometimes we end up with not quite enough and sometimes there’s cooked vegetables left over after we’ve finished off all the tortillas. Today we had a generous serving. I used onions, garlic, carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, and mushrooms. Sometimes I use zucchini in place of one of the other vegetables. And I just make a simple “Mexican” spice mix using individual herbs and spices: dried oregano, sweet paprika, chilli, cumin, cloves, and cinnamon. And a bit of lemon juice at the end. I found this mix somewhere online ages ago and it works pretty well. Just fry it all up and serve in a bowl with implements for people to fill their own tortillas.

Last night I started watching Oppenheimer on Netflix. I got 2 hours into it, but had to go to sleep, so I have the final hour to watch tonight. I’m enjoying it, but it takes a lot of concentration to follow the frequent flashback/forward time jumps as the story unfolds. The really cool thing is that being a physicist I recognise the names of all the scientist characters.

New content today:

More thinking about cooking

It was hot again today. This autumn heatwave didn’t let up, but it’s predicted to break tonight, with some rain and a cool change, and tomorrow should be a much more tolerable 24°C. But when I took Scully for a walk this morning there was a distinct smell of smoke in the air. Authorities were doing controlled burns of bushland around Sydney to reduce fuel load and the overnight wind direction brought it into the heart of the city. I closed up the windows soon after opening as I noticed the smell permeating the house.

My ethics topic on Cooking continues to be entertaining. Kids love talking about food, so it’s a good one. One question I ask is: Is cooking an important skill that everyone should learn?

One girl answered:

Yes, because if you become a refugee, and you see a dead deer by the side of the road, then if you don’t know how to cook you’ll either die by starvation or die by parasites. I’d choose the first one, myself.

I did the week’s grocery shopping online as I usually do, for pickup tomorrow morning. I added everything on the shopping list, and looked through the regular items to see if I needed to add any of those. When I was done, the total was barely over $30, which was really unusual, because usually it’s closer to $100. It must have just been a weird confluence of not running out of things that need replenishing this week. But when I tried to check out I discovered that the minimum online order for a pick-up (also for home delivery, incidentally) is $50. So I had to go back and choose things to add to bring the total up to that much! I added a few things that we don’t specifically need this week, but probably will next week, such as dried cranberries (which go in our home made muesli) and sesame seeds… and then I decided to add some things to make a dessert: cream, mascarpone, and chocolate biscuits.

Last night I started watching The Cabin in the Woods on Netflix. I’m halfway through and will finish watching it tonight after my last ethics class. I was expecting a standard sort of horror movie, but it’s clear that there is something very different going on in this film, though I’m still somewhat baffled as to what exactly. I’m eagerly looking forward to the second half. It feels like this is some sort of deconstruction of horror movie tropes and—I’m not sure if this will still apply after I finish it, but—I feel like it’s a significant film that anyone who thinks they know the horror genre must watch. Sort of like Scream (an absolute classic), only in a very, very different way. Anyway, I may give my final impressions after I finish it. (I’m avoiding spoilers, but I’ll have finished watching it by the time I read any comments on this post, so feel free to comment.)

New content today: