davetheanalyzer

Dad helped repair my laptop twice this month. I found I actually got the correct hinges and back cover from ebay, complete with wifi wires along with the latter so I didn’t need to order the other wifi wires to be begin with, which mightn’t have been the right 1s and never seemed arrived to my home. I did express to Dad interest in helping take the laptop apart, so he taught me how to remove the screws but not much more than that because we’re dealing with delicate parts and don’t want to take all day to accomplish the task. But I found I ordered the wrong screen cable, which only connect to 2 out of 3 places. Dad had me take a close up picture of the names and numbers on the original video cable to find a replacement. I found 1 on another site aside from ebay and ordered it. When it arrived, Dad confirmed it was the right 1 and a few days later we installed it. Dad tried to put back the cover around the screen but the back cover seemed to be of a different size. That didn’t fix the screen freezing and strange colors, though they’ve lessened. Dad thinks it might be the screen that’s the issue, probably from me closing the screen only from 1 side long ago. I heard the advice that you should move the screen from both sides to prevent that but I’m not going to move it unless it’s necessary. I’m not going to buy another screen yet, wanting a break from taking the laptop apart and replacing parts. Hopefully if the issue the screen persists, ordering 1 will fix the screen issues.

I saw the film Belle on HBO Max. I heard about Mamoru Hosoda’s films and have been considering seeing them. I know he directed the Digimon Adventure film Our War Game and episode 21 of Adventure, the first Digimon thing I recall seeing. Since it was on Max, I decided to see it. I feel mixed on it. There’s so much detail stuffed in that I feel like it should have been a miniseries. It’s about a girl called Suzu who escapes into the virtual world “U” as the persona Belle who sings and has a lot of fans. She’s distant from her father and still reeling from the loss of her mother who sacrificed herself to save a girl during a flood. There was a lot of setup at the beginning both of the virtual world and Suzu’s life. I was initially confused when the movie went back to when Suzu first entered the virtual world and building her relationship with Hiroka as a manager to sing there. Being loosely based on Beauty and the Beast, it takes over a half an hour for the Beast/Dragon in question to appear, interrupting Belle’s concert to fight Justin and his law vigilante enforcers. Suzu becomes fascinated by the Beast.

The montages about people’s impressions of him were neat but I wish we saw what the Beast did that made him popular with children – maybe footage of him helping or protecting them from bullies? Anyway, Suzu wants to meet him and gets guided by Angel, a user that was her very first fan. The Beast is hostile to her but she keeps coming back and asking about his motives and wounds. I don’t know what Suzu’s strategy was but her attempting to be nice in his hostility was uncomfortable. I guess after driving her away a second time, he felt guilty about it because he rescues her from Justin and his vigilantes at the cost of more injuries to himself. I surmise the Beast dislikes her gaze because it makes him think deeper about parts of himself he’d prefer not to with his “difficult background.” But he warms to her and seems surprised to be dancing with Belle. I wish there were more interactions between Suzu and the Beast because we get to them warming up to each other and then so many other plotlines have to move to the front we don’t have time for their bond.

I also wish we saw when Hiroka’s hostility to the Beast started to soften. I did like it was revealed that Ruka the popular girl in school was as nice as she seemed and that her crush wasn’t Suzu’s popular childhood friend Shinobu but the quirky kayak obsessed Kamishin. Ruka holding her face embarrassed while Kamishin went in and out having to work up the nerve to return her feelings with Suzu’s encouragement was amusing. It was also kind of funny that Shinobu realized that Suzu is Belle and that her adult choir mates who were friends with her mother knew she was Belle the whole time. Justin finds and destroys the Beast’s home but to warn the Beast he might get his identity revealed, she and Hiroka track them down to a boy livestreaming who seems like he want to be found, who is revealed to be Angel. Everyone’s horrified to see the father abuse him and his older brother, who protects him. Kei who is the Beast and Tomo the Angel boy talk with Suzu’s group but Kei doesn’t believe her claim she’s Belle. She offers to help but Kei’s skeptical and angry.

His reaction is understandable, since he experienced a lot of inaction from those too scared or undriven to do anything. So Shinobu persuades Suzu to reveal her Belle identity in the virtual world to gain trust. She becomes a boss and uses Justin’s identity revealer device to expose herself. Despite her nerves, Suzu sings and wins the virtual world users over. I liked that a former petty rival she upstaged warms to her because Suzu’s an ordinary girl like her and later calls out to her in support. Kei gets back in contact touched but before he could give any more details, his father comes in to stop them. Her friends are able to use the buildings seen in the window and the announcement sounds to track them down. When she goes on the train to Tokyo, I like how Suzu really talked with her father (through text) for the first time in a long while and that they really connected, including her father mentioning she was acting like her mother. I also liked that after getting her faced scratched protecting Kei and Tomo she glared at the abusive father until he lost his nerve and ran away. I wish we got an indication of what happened to the brothers, even if a passing comment or a photo or text indicating they were well. I did wonder if Suzu would still be Belle in the virtual world. At least she made peace with her mother’s death. There is the depiction of Suzu vomiting early in the film and visual and verbal depictions of child abuse. With that in mind, if this film sounds up your alley, feel free to see it.

That’s all for now. May Trump be stopped and fail utterly and Palestine and all hostages be free. Until the end of April, see you!