Emily St. John Mandel and the book ‘Sea of Tranquility: A Novel’

Imagine, if you will, the notion of experiencing a life moving through time and space on an emotional journey of self-discovery. Imagine further that life unraveling a puzzle of corrupted time tied to a specific point of time that intersects a specific place in western British Columbia, Canada. Just such a journey awaits in Sea of Tranquility: A Novel as written by Emily St. John Mandel.

(Emily St. John Mandel wrote Sea of Tranquility: A Novel).

That Sea of Tranquility: A Novel deals in time travel has been raised. Imagine too the notion of simulation hypothesis, which as defined on Wikipedia here “proposes that all of existence is a simulated reality, such as a computer simulation.” While the exploration here is much more tranquil than say the exploration provided in The Matrix (1999), Emily St. John Mandel ask similar questions about what reality is, how time is experienced, and what constitutes memory when our perceptions of what is real are blurred.

(An alternative cover for Sea of Tranquility: A Novel, which was first published April 5th, 2022).

The character Edwin St. Andrew opens Sea of Tranquility: A Novel by being exiled from England, across the Atlantic Ocean, into Canada. While enjoying the Canadian wilderness, Edwin suddenly becomes shaken when experiencing what he takes as the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal. Famous writer Olive Llewellyn, her home the second artificial colony on the Moon, writes of a man playing his violin on an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him. Gaspery-Jacques Roberts then investigates this and other items, focusing the story into a mystery and romance that set about answering questions of reality, the experience of time and memory in a sweet tale of attempts to do the extraordinary being disrupted by the human experience.

(Emily St. John Mandel also wrote the book Station Eleven, which was first published September 9th, 2014).

Sea of Tranquility: A Novel was written during the strictest movement restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic. While get into the metaphysical, St. John Mandel maintains a sense of the ordinary with sprinkles of the grasp for meaning, connection, recognition and aspiration. The reach for these points mirrored the human experience during the COVID-19 lockdowns in a fictional way that gave meaning intermixed with beauty to the human experience. I give the experience of reading Sea of Tranquility: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel 4.25-stars on a scale of 1-to-5 stars.

Matt – Wednesday, August 2, 2023

The Year 2019 in Movies

Matt Lynn Digital maintained a strong focus on reviewing movies in 2019. In taking a cinematic look back at the films we reviewed this year, we’ll provide a look into 48 distinct movie. We’ll additionally look into the concept of remakes and sequels as a bonus look into the field of movie making.

(The best movie Matt Lynn Digital saw in 2019 was Vertigo as directed by Alfred Hitchcock. We reviewed this film in April).

Atop our list of movies is the one film that received a perfect rating, that of 5-stars on a scale of 1-to-5 stars on the movie rankings list. Alfred Hitchcock‘s Vertigo (1958) is a film that uses a narrative style mixing in mystery, thriller, romance, and psychological illness to suggest that a character isn’t guilty. Vertigo is the first of two Alfred Hitchcock movies reviewed this year.

(Matt Lynn Digital reviewed 2001: A Space Odyssey as directed, produced and co-written by Stanley Kubrick. We reviewed this film in January).

Our second best film for the year introduced us to space tourism and a future of what traveling in space might look like in Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The rating of 4.75-stars reflects the quality in innovation, storytelling, science fiction and genre creation. This is also the first of six movies reviewed this year associated with space travel.

(Three films rated at 4.50-stars included 1980’s Ordinary People, 1992’s Glengarry Glenn Ross and 1998’s Saving Private Ryan. The films were reviewed in January, April and July, respectively).

Four Academy Awards awaited the film Ordinary People (1980), a sad, moving, and emotionally satisfying film. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) offers the colorful language of full-throated criticism of the modern American business culture. The first of six films produced, directed or both for Steven Spielberg happens to be the first of three films starring Tom Hanks in our review this year. The film Saving Private Ryan (1998) shows a highly realistic depiction of the human cost of war, culminating in the central stories of a group of soldiers tasked with saving one soldier whose brothers died in that same war.

(Three of six films rated at 4.25-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 2019’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, 1999’s The Matrix and 1988’s Big. The films were reviewed in August, May and November, respectively).

The film Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019) provides a fictional retelling of the time, the place, and an fact-adjacent place of Hollywood in the 1950s and 1960s. A winner of four Academy Awards, the film The Matrix (1999) offered a groundbreaking dystopian movie-going experience. The film Big (1988) made a splash with the whimsy of a 13-year-old boy in a grown man’s body.

(The remaining six films rated at 4.25-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 1988’s Rain Man, 1989’s Field of Dreams and 2000’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The films were reviewed in October, June and December, respectively).

Another winner of four Academy Awards in our reviews this year was the serious yet comedic film Rain Man (1988). The second film, Field of Dreams (1989), while being perhaps the best baseball film ever made is the first of three movies reviewed this year to star Kevin Costner. The film How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) offers an irrepressible portrayal of an aggrieved Grinch who does not care for the holiday of Christmas.

(Four of eight films rated at 4-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 2019’s Joker, 1961’s A Raisin in the Sun, 2016’s Hidden Figures and 1995’s Apollo 13. The films were reviewed in October, June, November and July, respectively).

The film Joker (2019) tells a gritty, physically demanding, emotional gut punch of an origin story of a would-be foil of the comic book character Batman. A Raisin in the Sun (1961) is a film adaptation that reviews the value and purpose of dreams, the need to fight racial discrimination and the importance of family. The film Hidden Figures (2016) focuses on three African American women fighting society and culture placing the obstacles of indignity, prejudice, and institutional obstruction in their way in service of the space race. The blockbuster film Apollo 13 (1995) tells a triumphant story of human ingenuity and tragedy averted.

(The remaining eight films rated at 4-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 1992’s A Few Good Men, 1993’s The Remains of the Day, 1993’s The Fugitive and 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The films were reviewed in July, February, March and September, respectively).

A Few Good Men (1992) is a film that tells the fictional tale of a Navy lawyer who has never seen the inside of the courtroom while defending two reticent Marines accused of murdering a colleague in Cuba. The film The Remains of the Day (1993) explored how to waste your life emotionally and politically. The preceding two films garnered a dozen Academy Award nominations between the two of them. In the film The Fugitive (1993) you see the story of a man unjustly accused of murdering his wife who gains his freedom through a train accident then sets to establish his innocence. In Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), a partially live action and animated film offers an adult sensibility filled with lurid details, gags of a lighter nature, and an all around good time.

(Four of fourteen films rated at 3.75-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 2019’s Motherless Brooklyn, 2019’s Knives Out, 2017’s The Darkest Hour and 2012’s Looper. The films were reviewed in November, December, April and June, respectively).

The film  Motherless Brooklyn (2019) sets itself against the backdrop of 1950s New York City with a puzzle for lead character and private detective with Tourette’s Syndrome. Knives Out (2019) as a whodunnit works for not being based on anything. The film The Darkest Hour (2017) follows the trying days of the Dunkirk Evacuation with Operation Dynamo. Rian Johnson, with his second film in this paragraph in Looper (2012), gets creative with two characters battling each other through time in an interesting science fiction plot.

(Four of fourteen films rated at 3.75-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 1999’s October Sky, 2018’s Ready Player One, 2010’s Inception and 2018’s Widows. The films were reviewed in May, February, January and September, respectively).

The film October Sky (1999) tells the tale of a difficult father son relationship and the formation of a career in the early days of the space race. The science fiction, fantasy, and action film Ready Player One (2018) offers clever mixes of graphic and reality set in the hypothetical year 2045. Winning four Academy Awards, the film Inception (2010) offers a decent science fiction story line with an entertaining if dreamy cinematic experience that works well in movie or home theaters alike. The film Widows (2018) offers political intrigue, a corrupt local crime boss, and a broken relationship between a husband and wife that gives this story some punch.

(Six of fourteen films rated at 3.75-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 1988’s Bull Durham, 1986’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 1983’s Terms of Endearment, 1982’s Poltergeist, 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1954’s White Christmas. The films were reviewed in October, August, February, August, June and December, respectively).

The film Bull Durham (1988) is the film of a rookie, a veteran, an experienced fan seeking a love triangle and baseball.  Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) tells a comedic high school version of the message stop and smell the flowers. Winning five Academy Awards, the film Terms of Endearment (1983) tells of the family problems of an independently spirited daughter and her hard to please mother. The original film Poltergeist (1982) gains momentum as random occurrences in the home begin to introduce themselves and grow into outright disturbances that scare the audience. An alien-themed film with a lyrical bent gives a glimpse into the wonder that is the move Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). White Christmas (1954) is the romantic movie for Christmas that quite honestly inspired the genre.

(Four of ten films rated at 3.50-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 1996’s Fargo, 1998’s Fallen, 1985’s The Color Purple and 1941’s Dumbo. The films were reviewed in February, March, March and March, respectively).

Fargo (1996) won an Academy Award for screenplay written for the screen while playing in the genres of crime, drama, and possibly thriller. Most correctly, the film should be characterized as a dark comedy in small town America. The film Fallen (1998) mixes the genres of supernatural with police thriller in tackling a clever telling of aiming to defeat the supernatural. The film adaptation of The Color Purple (1985) could have been harder hitting in getting into some of the upbringing and forcibly separate lives of sisters Celie Johnson and Nettie Harris. Brutal truths in the lives of the sisters are explored nonetheless with dignity. The fifth movie released by Disney was the animated film Dumbo (1941). The 64-minute feature gets into the story of a baby elephant forced to work in order to survive.

(Three of ten films rated at 3.50-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 1963’s The Birds, 1990’s Arachnophobia and 2018’s Brian Banks. The films were reviewed in May, June and August, respectively).

The sudden and unpredictable attacks of birds form the premise of the Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds (1963). Arachnophobia (1990) just might be the film for you have a fear originating in childhood that you’d like to have comically challenged for two hours. The film Brian Banks (2018) recounts much of the story of a man sent to jail unjustly in what appears to be a clear case of injustice.

(Three of ten films rated at 3.50-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 2019’s The Secret Life of Pets 2, 2019’s Gemini Man and 2010’s The Town. The films were reviewed in July, October and December, respectively).

The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019) is an animated film that follows the lives of pets in an apartment in New York City as pet owners leave for the day with the added mixture of a circus, a farm, and an airplane flight. The film Gemini Man (2019) deserved better than the box office gate the film received in theaters.  The Town (2010) offered a film looking into the notion of burglary, armored trucks, banks, and Fenway Park serving as places just as distinctly as there were funny notions of love and loyalty.

Movies landing with a rating of 3.25-stars included The Jackal (1997) reviewed in May,  The Running Man (1987) reviewed in August, The Mule (2018) reviewed in August, Welcome to Marwen (2018) reviewed in September and Ad Astra (2019) reviewed in October.

Addressing the theory of remaking movies or offering sequels that keep a franchise going, we offered why this can work to assist storytelling and cinema in a look we made in March. We looked into A Star is Born (1937), A Star Is Born (1954), A Star Is Born (1976) and A Star is Born (2018). We looked into The Wizard of Oz (1939) and The Wiz (1978). Then there were Little Orphan Annie (1932), Annie (1982), Annie (1999) and Annie (2014). The films The Godfather (1972) led to sequels The Godfather: Part II (1974) and The Godfather: Part III (1990). Batman Begins (2005) led to The Dark Knight (2008), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). The film Jaws (1975) led to three sequels, namely Jaws 2 (1978), Jaws 3-D (1983), and Jaws: The Revenge (1987).

We finally offered our Top 20 Movies in ranked order (with reviews) in April. I recommend taking a closer look, as there are movies that we didn’t specifically review in 2019 that are worth your time. 2019 was a good year for reviews with us. Invite your friends to follow us if you agree.

Matt – Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and the film ‘The Matrix’

It hardly feels like twenty years ago that the groundbreaking dystopian movie The Matrix (1999) dropped to moviegoers around the world. Written and directed by Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski, then known as the Wachowski Brothers, The Matrix would go on to win four Academy Awards for Editing, Sound Effects Editing, Visual Effects and Sound.

(Carrie Anne Moss as Trinity, Keanu Reeves as Neo, and Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus in The Matrix).

The Matrix as a series of three movies covers the the story of a computer hacker named Neo who learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and the role he will take in a war against the controllers of that reality. A large movement of this film, the first part of that three piece movement, is introducing Neo (aka Thomas Anderson) as played by Keanu Reeves to his hero Morpheus (as played by Laurence Fishburne) and his love interest Trinity (as played by Carrie Anne Moss).

(Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith in The Matrix).

Hugo Weaving plays perhaps the chief protagonist to Neo and the group familiar with what the construct of the matrix, the computer program known as Agent Smith. Agent Smith and the programs of the matrix power their existence atop the dystopian world that remains after a cataclysmic past wherein humans have blocked access to the sun on Earth and have been enslaved in a programmed reality wherein people are, in fact, enslaved without their knowledge.

(Joe Pantoliano as Cypher in The Matrix).

Joe Pantoliano plays Cypher, an enlightened character who has been freed of the enslavement ahead of Neo’s confrontation with this question. Cypher played an instrumental role in the course of The Matrix, along with the course of the future movies, in how he chooses to interact with his fundamental reality. The trajectory of Cypher, I’d argue, is perhaps the biggest accomplishment of the full franchise of The Matrix movies.

(Gloria Foster as Oracle in The Matrix).

The original role of the Oracle in The Matrix is played by Gloria Foster, who reportedly died from during the filming of The Matrix Reloaded (2003), the second of the three movies in the franchise. Oracle was granted the power of foresight through undefined means, which she uses to assist Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, and others in The Matrix. I presume that Oracle is part of the construct of programs within the matrix, which is not explored in much detail at all in the franchise and not at all in the original film.

(Marcus Chong as Tank in The Matrix).

Tank, as played by Marcus Chong in The Matrix, is key to helping establish Neo’s role as ‘the One’ in The Matrix franchise. Beyond the myth building and engaging Neo with the neural interactive software used to engage the matrix from the real world, Tank plays a decisive role in the original movie that fails to carry his character into the subsequent movies in franchise. Tank’s role is central to the broader myth of The Matrix, the narrative arcs of Morpheus, Neo, and Cypher, and ultimately resolving with clarity the course of the story for all three of these characters.

(Lilly Wachowski and Lana Wachowski wrote and directed The Matrix and its sequels).

Of the three movies in the franchise of The Matrix, The Matrix itself is the best movie of the three in establishing the mythology, setting a vision of an alternate yet compelling and frightening alternate view of a world, and ultimately telling an entertaining story for the length of the film. While not all aspects of each individual character’s story were fully explored and clear through the first film, I found the film satisfying, entertaining, and worth the investment in time and cost. I give The Matrix 4.25-stars on a scale of one-to-five stars.

Matt – Saturday, May 18, 2019