journal features

movie review - Oblivion

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2015.01.28

This is an under-rated science fiction piece about a pair of humans assigned to oversee robotic drones that patrol a quadrant of the dying Earth. Without giving too much away, the male half of this partnership begins to notice some things that don't add up with the narrative that's told by their handler up in orbit. This culminates in contact with human residents of the supposedly vacant planet. That quickly leads to a falling out with his partner and serious questions about his handlers that get dramatically worse when he starts finding answers.

The final scene in the movie lands on a rather decent note in which against all odds a family of sort is reunited and the planet's residence have a shot at a kind of peace on an Earth that's very nearly - but not completely - fucked.

Strongly recommended.

rand()m quote

Immature poets imitate mature poets steal bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique utterly different than that from which it is torn the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time or alien in language or diverse in interest.

—T.S. Eliot