Movies February 2009

Food Inc.

I think we're trying to shock ourselves into better eating habits. Much more of an unapologetic agenda than King Corn, but not, necessarily, more effective for it.

Oban Star Racers, Alwas Cycle, disc 1
I wasn't sure if this was a children's cartoon when I rented this, but it is. Fortunately, it's a decent one, and very creative. This French/Japanese hybrid produces some lovely images and fun ideas.

Oban Star Racers, Alwas Cycle, disc 2
See above.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

I was struck watching this movie by how REAL everything was, more like filmed plays than modern movie making. In the opening credits, when dude was driving a team of horses down a river, he was out there doing it. There was no green screen, and no close-ups and inserts to preserve budget. They got them some horses and a river and they shot it. Later, when the would-be brides were running away from their families at the end, two of them hid under cows. SO REAL.

Dream boat

Couple nights ago I dreamed I was guest starring on a 30 Rock episode, and between takes, I was driving around with Judah Friedlander (who, in the dream, was being played by Seth Rogen) in an old beater car. We were driving along a river, when huge sinkholes opened up in the riverbed, sucking down whorls of water.

It happened twice before one opened large enough to swallow the road and the traffic on it. I had the window rolled down, and as we fell into the river, I saw that we could swim out of the car, grab onto a rock, and climb up from there. Pretty easy. Seth Rogen was freaking out, said he couldn't swim, so I said, "Hang on to me." I grabbed him, and went out the window as water filled the car. Then I woke up.

Normally I don't write about my dreams on my blog, because dreams are boring to read. But it's encouraging to have one where you're clear-minded and confident, so I thought I'd point it out.

Smiles and denials

For years and years, when friends' relationships foundered, I was baffled when one or both halves of a couple would smile and act like they were not just barely holding it together through force of will, even when confronted directly by an outsider.

Sometimes I would be more than baffled. I would take it personally, because crying and breaking things indicated an obvious red-lights-and-bells problem, yet my concerns would be shooed away like those of a beloved, overprotective nanny. "Thanks for being such a good friend," they would say, "We'll work through this. It'll be fine."

I would think, "They have to know how bad things are. They must just want me out of the way."

Today, it finally occurred to me that they weren't intentionally lying to me. They really were just deeply disoriented... so lost that offers of help looked like threats. Smiles and denials was how they had solved their problems before. There was no reason for it not to work this time too.

You can see how this would seem alien to a man who falls apart semi-annually. But all considered, I like my way better. I prefer lots of little break-downs to any number of big ones. That might even be why I do it, come to think of it.

A downer about uppers

It's nice to talk about depression here when I'm not depressed myself. Newsweek features an article, The Depressing News About Antidepressants.

All you really need to read:

Now Kirsch was certain. "The belief that antidepressants can cure depression chemically is simply wrong,"...

Which is not to say that antidepressants don't help. But it might be more accurate to say that, as far as clinical trials can tell us, believing you're doing something about your depression is about as helpful as anything.

Shake cancer off

Normally I save all these science-related links for one post, but, you know, oh well. In this article, the interesting bit is not only buried in the story, it also somehow escaped the headline:

Nanomaterials may help fight cancer

So might regular-size materials. So what? The cool part is here:

A team of scientists... developed a technique that uses gold-plated iron-nickel microdiscs connected to brain-cancer-seeking antibodies to fight cancer.


The discs posses a spin-vortex ground state and sit dormant on the cancer cell until a small alternating magnetic field is applied and the vortices shift, creating an oscillation. The energy from the oscillation is transferred to the cell and triggers apoptosis, or "cell suicide."

 They want to shake cancer cells to death. I hope we get diseases cured before the world ends. Because I'll be all like "In your face, infirmity! Woo!"

Lil dragon picture

Totally not 'shopped.

via Reddit.

The latest in science!

SCIENCE! Every once in a while, I'm reminded that I don't read New Scientist magazine often enough. These articles have fascinated me lately:


Reality might be a hologram
When good science questions fundamental ideas about reality is when I really love science. There's no easy summary pullquote from this article, but try this on:

GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in.

 New strategy: Let the wookiee win.


From questioning reality, we move to questions of humanity:


Why you're only half-human
Your other half probably isn't what you thought it was.

The ability of viruses to unite, genome-to-genome, with their hosts has clear evolutionary significance. For the host, it means new material for evolution. If a virus happens to introduce a useful gene, natural selection will act on it and, like a beneficial new mutation, it may spread through the population.

 And as long as we're evoking "natural selection", please see:


Darwinism's limits
As much as I love science, I hate the sloppy equivocation of "Darwinism" with "science." Modern thinkers scrawl Darwin's name on their notebooks inside bubbly hearts. The lack of critical thinking -- and the schoolyard taunt of "ID-iot" for anyone who tries -- undermines the formidable utility of scientific methodology. We need more people criticizing and testing Darwinism and evolution without fear of ridicule or professional reprisal.


From the article:

Much of the vast neo-Darwinian literature is distressingly uncritical. The possibility that anything is seriously amiss with Darwin's account of evolution is hardly considered. Such dissent as there is often relies on theistic premises which Darwinists rightly say have no place in the evaluation of scientific theories. So onlookers are left with the impression that there is little or nothing about Darwin's theory to which a scientific naturalist could reasonably object. The methodological scepticism that characterises most areas of scientific discourse seems strikingly absent when Darwinism is the topic.

While I'm on the topic, there's an article I've saved for years from the Philadelphia Daily News entitled Darwinism: Right, But Beside the Point? The full online text is in a pay archive, but since I've got the paper copy in front of me, here's the money shot:

Darwinian evolution -- whatever its other virtues -- isn't the cause for experimental breakthroughs in biology. ...For students aspiring to benefit society through experimental biology, Darwinism is simply beside the point.

Time's up for Darwinism fetishism. Let's move on, Internet.


Finally, for the apocalypse lover in you:


Digital Doomsday: the end of knowledge
This is the monster in my closet, the reason I keep a copy of the US Army Survival Manual: FM 21-76 on my bookshelf.

Yet even as we are acquiring ever more extraordinary knowledge, we are storing it in ever more fragile and ephemeral forms. If our civilisation runs into trouble, like all others before it, how much would survive?

None of that helps if my glasses get smashed in the apocalypse though.


Happy science everyone!

A Love Letter for You was an Internet blip last year, but you might have missed it, and it's pretty great, so look again.



The whole thing is a project of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program masterminded by a dude named Stephen Powers, who I'd really like to meet. He grew up a West Philly graffiti artist, went legit as a sign painter, and has become, like, a dude in the fine art world on New York.

But he remembers his roots like a potato, knowhu'msaying?


If you live in Philly and ride the regional rail, you know how adventurous taggers are. They get some amazing places to put up their names for you to see riding the train. These murals are all along Market street in West Philly, best viewed from the Market-Frankford El (i.e., the train). Seeing these is worth a ride.


In case you don't live in Philly, lookit the Web site. Consider buying the book for your sweetie this Valentine's.

Aliens in rhythmic retrospection

This is a 10-minute encapsulation of why James Cameron has been capable of making great movies, even if Avatar wasn't all that hot.

Even 25 years later, Aliens remains fantastic. It looks a little dated now, but the emotional sting of this movie is as sharp as it ever was -- thrilling and scary. The principals don't do stupid things to create tension, and the machinations are logical and intertwine to create an excellent story.

This novelty rap about the whole thing only highlights these truths.



Thanks to boingboing for the heads-up!

Movies January 2009

Inglourious Basterds
This movie defies my normal liked/didn't like dichotomy. I liked parts of it... Brad Pitt is a fun actor who also got the show-stealing part. But like all Quentin Tarantino movies, the gore seemed gratuitous. The movie would have been less shocking, less visceral without it, but I guess I'm not the dude who thinks that's a bad thing.

The fairy-tale bit was subtle. When I would later think about some over-the-top aspect of it, I would remember its "Once Upon a Time" beginning, which helped contextualize things. Overall, this was a well-executed flick, accompanied by great writing and fine acting.

Avatar (3D)
After hearing the rapturous stories of the wonders of Avatar in 3D, M and I decided to give it another chance. She liked it a little more this time, but I liked it even less, because it wasn't a good enough story to hold my interest a second time. I got bored and fidgety at one point, went to the bathroom mid-movie, which is practically against my religion. It's an OK movie -- it's just not a great movie. Like Titanic, people have swooned and thrown money at it. Unlike Titanic, I don't understand the furor from primary sources, not just from a disinterested distance.

Samurai Champloo, disc 5
OK, taking breaks between SC discs loses the flow for me. I'm watching them in a row from here.

Samurai Champloo, disc 6
Only 3 episodes? Aw man. I really like this series.

Samurai Champloo, disc 7
Oh, endings. How often you are not what we wished. I secretly wanted this to end like the samurai revenge flick this promised to be, i.e., dead principals like a Shakespeare tragedy. Considering how smart and mature some of the individual stories were, I thought it might happen! But it didn't happen. I really enjoyed the series overall though, and would happily watch it again some time.

Gilmore girls, season 7, disc 6
Skipped a couple of intermediate season 7 discs, because I didn't like the way the season was going. Jumped back in for the last two episodes of the series. It was ok.

30 Rock, season 3, disc 1
Still pretty funny!

King Corn
I've read my Michael Pollen; I've done the homework. This documentary was fair and clean. There is just nothing sensible about American corn growing any more. Everyone involved knows it, but no one wants to be the bad guy and put the brakes on.

I'm complicit. I love cheap food too. This is what we've done for ourselves, and you have to admit, cheap food is pretty awesome. I'm glad to live in a place and time where I get the benefit of astonishingly inexpensive food. But what good is cheap food that is also nutritionally vacuous?

I used to wonder what thing we didn't see coming would kill my generation. Previous generations smoked or ingested lead. It seemed safe enough until we learned more, and found out those things had a hidden awful side.

I don't wonder any more. Because now I know it's high fructose corn syrup. It kills us early, and it will still be 10 to 20 years before that shit is properly outlawed. And it's in so many things you buy at the grocery store, that it's bloody hard to escape.

And since we've ceded a lot of our food knowledge to giant agribusiness corporations, we can't fend for ourselves as well as we used to. And good food is expensive. Problems. Problems.

The 40 Year Old Virgin
Especially after watching the DVD extras, I have to wonder: Just how much of this movie was scripted? Because it seemed like there was a whole lot of improv.