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dicobalt
Reviews
Outsourced (2010)
This is dystopian to watch...
Outsourced was what we got in 2010, Squid Game is what we got in 2021. As a well paid former call center worker I look at this show in retrospect and think to myself "I never knew that exploiting devalued labor markets could be so moderately HILARIOUS!" Using cultural differences to make a comedy is a wonderful idea. Unfortunately this application of that premise is intensely tone deaf to the exploitation and that makes this show more than a little dystopian to watch. Yes, haha that cultural misunderstanding led to a funny situation, I get it. The corporate creators of this show seem to have actively avoided addressing exploitation and thus broadening the potential for great comedy through satire. Think what this show could have been if someone like George Carlin had been the creative director. I guess NBC felt that advertisers would likely recoil in anger should viewers be made aware of the destitute individuals overseas who make and support the things they purchase. In the real world worker moral is so low at Indian call centers that they hire mental health experts for their employees. The creators happily use cultural harmony as a shield against announcing those wall-smashing elephants in the room. I guess "jobs nobody wants" should pay next to nothing because that's completely consistent with capitalism.
Silo (2023)
Great scifi premise ruined by a cookie cutter plot
I've only seen the first 4 episodes since the rest aren't out yet. This starts with great scifi concepts, but it's quickly abandoned so it can instead become yet another boring crime drama. Why do they try so hard to ignore the most compelling element: everyone stuck in this giant silo and nobody knowing why. It's as if they hired writers from Law & Order who had no idea how to write a compelling scifi plot, so they fell back on what they knew. Even the circumstances placed upon the characters are cookie cutter, been there done that, many times. ChatGPT could be the producer and writer for this show and nobody would notice a difference. Maybe they will turn this plot bus around to a better destination before the season is over?
The Wonder (2022)
A great watch for the fiercely religious.
I wanted to give this a 6 or 7 at first. However, after little more thought I have come to appreciate the message and consequences it conveys as not just a thing of fiction.
Faith provides relief in life, the constant unwavering destination of something better than worldly life. That the prices paid in life are not for nothing. If we have faith we will be rewarded with an eternity of Eden.
Although in Genesis there was a cost for Adam and Eve being in Eden, freedom from knowledge. Not everyone in our life is willing entertain the high price of knowledge, the casting out of Eden. It's up to you to remember the story in this film but, also consider how other stories outside of this film have come to be.
Severance (2022)
Dystopian representation of labor and corporate power.
A slow burn dystopian show, at least from the first two episodes so far that have been released. This show is about the impact of corporate psychopaths and their cold influence on people's lives. How it affects them and the world. People who live on talking points, detachment, shallow philosophies, and control to the point of obsession. A life that splits people into two parts, who they really are and who they are forced to pretend to be for the good of the corporation. Notice the amount of objects in the show that are blue, they are things produced from such companies and people. This blue permeates most scenes, pay attention to things that aren't blue, and the red things too. The abstract nature of the job they do is looking for "scary numbers" and then marking them, which I'll let you decide the meaning of.
It's ironically hilarious that the show starts with the text "An Apple Original" since Apple+ is the platform it's on. The character Mark played by Adam Scott bears a resemblance to a younger Steve Jobs. It's more than a little dystopian that Apple's Chinese workers expend their existence for near slave labor wages while living at the factory and sleeping in Squid Game bunk beds eight or more to a room. Workers who are highly controlled and manipulated in their work environment and out. Although, I'd bet they'd love this show if it was even available in China (or legal) considering the show's subversive tones. Unfortunately Apple employees aren't the only ones subjected to this treatment in China. That is the accepted norm for worker rights and unions are illegal, our corporations are collaborators, as are the people in them.
Relic (2020)
A creepy science mystery.
Fun Fact: Mold can cause all sorts of wacky wild mental problems to people who are genetically disposed. This is the story of what happens when things get weird, when you can't trust your own senses, and when you don't even know it. What you fall back on will determine your fate. This is not horror, this is what happens to people who fall down the rabbit's hole. I've been into a few.