Annihilation: Film Review

Alex Garland continues to be one to the more interesting directors out there.  The fact that he seems to focus on the sci-fi genre makes it all the better for me.  While only his third directing position after Dredd, and Ex Machina, his screenplays for 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Never Let Me Go, and The Beach were also worthy mentions to his resume.

Annihilation is likely the most difficult of these to get through.  At points quiet and deliberately paced, it won't find interest among Snapchat aficionados.  This was recognized by Paramount and producer David Ellison who both wanted to change significant portions of the film in order to market it better to gain more commercial success.  Luckily Garland got his way and the film remained unaltered.  This has doomed the film to financial losses however as it appears to be headed for replacement in theaters in short order.  In fact, in markets other than the US, the film is headed straight for Netflix.

So what are most modern viewers missing?  A creepy, bloody, sometimes violent two hours of relatively unexplained weirdness.  Diverging heavily from the Jeff VanderMeer's trilogy, the film contains a complete beginning, middle and end and leaves nothing hanging for sequels.  In fact, beyond just a very basic scaffolding, the film contains little plot or events that are recognizable to the reader.  Ignore any mention of white-washing in the film...I've read the novels and attributing Asian or any other racial identities to the characters is virtually nonexistent and the fact that Garland used Portman as the lead shouldn't bother anyone except the SJW class of dimwits.

In the end our own film experiences are often derived from the histories we bring with ourselves to the theater.  For me, it boils down to a parable about a couple's attempt at recovery from infidelity seen through the prism of a sci-fi quest to discern the reasons behind an alien "shimmer" that spreads from a single point and mutates all it touches.  What comes out the other side are a husband and a wife completely different, down to their very genetic material than what they were before--the film seeming to say that through the prism of infidelity, all that you thought, were and did in the past is to meet a state of tabula rasa in order to function on the other side.

Along the way people are turned to plants, men are cut open and seen to contain giant worms on their insides, albino alligator-shark hybrids hunt the all female scientific team, a bear-something creature howls in a human voice before tearing apart one team member who has gone insane, and a near mirror finish alien-humanoid performs a mimicry dance in imitating Portman's every gesture.

I have a few quibbles...Like if the military was sending in a team to explore this anomaly, could they possibly have equipped this team worse?  No helmets?  No body armor?  And their overall gear looks more like they are out for a girl scout camping trip than a serious expedition.  Additionally...there isn't a single one of the female characters who looks comfortable with a gun...they all look like their skin might be allergic to the feel of metal on their skin and are stiff in their mannerisms in holding the weapons...someone needs some better training to at least LOOK like they know what they are doing...

I enjoyed it far better than the books from which the film came from as it does contain a resolution of its original questions and Garland's artistic voice is stronger and clearer than VanderMeer's who created an thrilling but ultimately empty world.  It took Garland to fill it with a reason to be.

Pioneer SP-BS22-LR vs. Polk Audio RTi6 Bookshelf Speakers

I am in the process of downsizing my audio equipment...I had parted with a large Klipsch subwoofer a few years ago and now have moved away from a complex surround sound system to merely a soundbar for TV/video viewing and a pair of bookshelf speakers for my music listening.  Nearing 40 I figure my living room should look a bit less like that of a college dorm.

So gone also now are the large Klipsch floorstanding speakers, replaced by the aforementioned bookshelfs.  None of this is to say I wanted my music to sound like crap.  On the contrary as I have ordered an Orbit turntable, if anything I want my music to sound at least as good as it has to date...just with a less imposing equipment and expense presence.

So it was that I was coming across the recent reviews for Pioneer's Sp-BS22-LR speakers.  They have gotten amazing reviews from numerous sources over the past year.  At a piddling $129 they were deemed to be some of the best speakers under $500 and were a huge bargain.  Designed by one Andrew Jones who I guess is a sort of wunderkind of speaker design I figured I'd give them a shot as I had intended to replace the floorstanding Klipsch speakers with my Polk Audio RTi6s that I had been using as rear surround speakers in my audio system.  If the cheap Pioneers were better sounding than my five year old Polks then I'd merely Craigslist the Polks and enjoy my find and audio improvement.

Setting them up side by side the Pioneers are slightly smaller and are certainly better looking--their curved housing is eyecatching and they fit on bookshelves much better than the Polks.  When it came to sound, again, put side by side, the Pioneers more than held their own.  The high end and textures of sound coming from the Pioneers was excellent.  Hearing the minute instrumental changes in Miles Davis's playing on Kind of Blue was great...you could make out the minute warblings in each note--something perhaps not a distinct in the Polks.

Unfortunately the Pioneers have a fatal flaw that resulted in me returning them and using my aged Polks.  They just can't handle high volume and base levels.  I hadn't turned them up very loud (at least not in my mind) nor was I playing anything very bass heavy when the Pioneer (I had one of each speaker hooked up at the same time) began failing...the dreadded "waffling" where the main driver cannot produce the low end at the volume it is being asked for and just begins producing a pathetic crackling sound, pathetically trying to a cubic of air at a speed it can't handle.  I've always imagined it as the cone reacting in a sort of uneven wave-like manner vs. a uniform in and out "punch" when this happens.  I suppose I'll have to look it up.

Regardless, this inability to produce proper sound at a high volume level was a killer in my mind.  My Polks kept up with what I wanted without hesitation and went far beyond the Pioneers exhibiting no "waffling".  So while I can recommend the Pioneers to someone looking to use them as computer speakers or for a kids room or maybe a bedroom where volumes are not going to be very high, I cannot recommend them for anyone's main listening system...not at any price.