The Cretaceous Past by Liu Cixin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is fun, strange, short and memorable. Millions of years ago, dinosaurs and ants lived together in a complex society. The ants befriend the dinosaurs by climbing into their mouths and eating the food stuck between their teeth, thereby inventing dinosaur dentistry. This is described in graphic detail as well as dinosaur medicine, ant computers, the dinosaur nuclear age and so much more. This reminds me of Liu’s earlier work, The Supernova Era, but ants and dinos instead of kids. Big Liu is great at thinking up alternative world rulers, yet systems remain similar, as ants still have mayors and chief-technical officers. If you want to dip your toes into Liu before reading a trilogy, this one is a great starting point.

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Body doubles, evil rich people, and consciousness-altering trauma made by Cronenberg: The Next Generation. It’s fun! There’s a Skarsgard clownin’ around and going totally nuts. Mia Goth remains super creepy, still without mercy or eyebrows. The moral is NEVER fall in love with Mia Goth! Don’t do it! It might seem like a good idea at the time but you will regret it. Despite the many epilepsy warnings, I didn’t find things too gory. Rather, it’s like Scary White Lotus or Trippy Triangle of Sadness. It’s nice we get so much media about the cruelty of the rich people nowadays but… What if we could get free prescriptions? That’d be neat! I watched on 2/4/23 at AMC Sunset with S. V. J.

Dir. Brandon Cronenberg : 2023 : 117mins. : From Letterboxd

Stickup Wall, DTLA, with T.W. 1/18/23