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This stuff happens. Sooner or later Samuel L Jackson is going to "Mother" his last "Fucker", and Patrick Stewart is not going to be able to quote Macbeth while wearing an X-Men costume. People die, but their contributions can and will be respectfully remembered just like every person's should be... and th... |
Friday, February 14, 2014 |
Movies of 2013, Science Fiction, pt2 |
Science Fiction |
Star Trek Into Darkness, or "Damon Lindelof seriously needs to stop 'contributing' to franchises I like." |
Overall: 6/10 |
Most of the posters suck. This one is okay. |
I have talked about this movie before. And have emphasized its studded nature. The idea that it has a lot of symbols and iconography to give it the semblance of meaning without actually being meaningful. This is practically the trademark of Damon Lindelof, creator of "Lost", whose one true gift if giving... |
This movie has more twists than pretzel bread, and each makes less sense than the last. It robs itself of emotional and intellectual resonance by immediately undoing huge plot developments. Background characters have more visual personality than the main hero, leaving me wanting to hear their story rather... |
Christopher Nolan took a 70 year old comic book franchise and used it for complex discussions about perseverance, iconography, order and chaos, the nature of fear, and the role of security and privacy. "Star Trek Into Darkness" rehashes stories and ideas to say nothing. The idea of WMD's and terrorism wer... |
Either have it be a fun adventure movie, or have a movie with intrigue and complex discussions, having both is like mixing ice cream and mashed potatoes. It doesn't work! At least not on any level that will last or stick with the audience. |
Ender's Game, or "Would I like this movie better if I had not read the book?" |
Overall: 6/10 |
Posters are overall better for this movie. But some of them suck a lot. |
Compliment 1: This is a visual triumph. |
And it is kind of distracting. When reading the book the video games and simulations are barely described, I personally imagined them as something like 3D "Dig Dug" and "Space Invaders", games that are not about graphical presentation but about teaching the mechanics of the game and developing a skill set ... |
SPOILER (skip to next compliment): There is of course a way they could have done both things, show them playing simple games at first, and then after they reveal what those games were really about flash to the actual battle and show it. It would have helped to illustrate Ender's revelation at what he had d... |
I am having Deja vu again. |
Is there only one art department doing spaceship designs now? |
Compliment 2: The story is technically proficient. |
There is a set up and pay off that existed in the novel, the use of human shields later pays off in the use of space ships to protect a particular weapon. But elements of the story, numerous conversations about the ethics of using Ender like they did, and nearly everything having to do with the tertiary ch... |
Compliment 3: The acting is not nearly as bad as I had been told to expect. |
Butterfield is the bedrock the movie is built on and he is a really good actor, they actually step on his acting at one point by talking over a moment of epiphany, but overall he is really good, and deserves more credit for adding depth to a script that does not have a lot of clever dialogue. Ben Kingsley ... |
No more compliments. |
That is pretty much the end of the good things I have to say. This movie is kind of a turkey, especially when compared to the book which is a god damn masterpiece. It has pacing issues that nearly kill it. Characters are introduced and dismissed so quickly that they can hardly been said to have existed a... |
There is also a slapped on environmental message about how the aliens are invading Earth because they need water... Which is stupid horseshit. Water is an incredibly abundant substance that can be harvested from space (something we see the aliens doing in the movie), there is no reason to talk about scarci... |
There is also a major omission from the book in the number of times Earth was invaded by the Aliens, and why Earth thinks that attacking in an all out scorched world strategy is so necessary to secure the safety of the human species. In the movie there was one invasion, in the book there had been two. And... |
Another problem is with the training. In the book, you understand what is happening, the rules, and why it works the way it does. You also understand how and why Ender is seen as good and smart because of how he changes the way the game is played through exploiting rules and mechanics. The movie doesn't ... |
Also, it is yet another movie that walks up to an important line of violence, and then backpedals. In the book Ender murders another child that is physically abusing him. And later on he murders another child. Ender doesn't intend wither murder, he is just fighting hard and without restraint to secure hi... |
Overall, this should have been a cartoon series, giving it time to do all it needs to do rather than the extremely condensed narrative that it is. |
Thursday, February 13, 2014 |
Movies of 2013, Science Fiction, pt1 |
Science Fiction |
I like Dystopias. I have talked about this in the past and keep coming back to it. I find it hilarious that in the 40's 1984 was considered the height of controversy because it depicted a future that was not bright and shiny because Orwell had the audacity to say Communism was bad (even though that book c... |
Overall: 6/10 |
Also, boring, boring posters. |
I would not call director Neill Blomkamp's first movie, "District 9" subtle, but compared to this it was cloaked in shadow and obscurity. |
The bad guys are cartoonish in their evil... Actually that is a disservice to Ursalla and Cruella de Vil. The bad guys are so evil that it kills your ability to buy into the movie. |
In Greek mythology the Fields of Elysium was a sort of heaven that existed beyond the horizon where great heroes went to live forever in legend. And I guess this movie does sort of acknowledge that Greek mythology exalted "virtues" that were at best questionable, with greed, glory, and self aggrandizing be... |
The science fiction element doesn't really make much sense because the metaphor is stretched past the breaking point. They have humanoid robots with super strength that can comprehend complex tasks... Why is there any menial labor left on Earth? Just have the robots do it. Instead they have the robots do... |
Moving past that the reason people on Earth want to go to Elysium isn't for work, or luxury, it is instead to get one use out of magical super beds that sure all disease and cure all injuries... Okay, I get it. Universal health care. Here is the thing, if such a device existed they would just set them up ... |
Monetizing the magic beds is easy to figure out. Take the cost of the machine, divide that by the number of typical uses you get out of the machine, then figure how much it would cost to pay a technician to maintain and operate the machine (which are household items that operate automatically on Elysium), ... |
Then there is a radiation scene. At one point Matt Damon accidently gets trapped in a chamber that irradiates him... What that chamber exists to do is unclear because all it seems to do is fill with radiation. (Is it a giant microwave?) Anyway, one of the villains of the movie is sees that the factory Da... |
The need of metaphor... Science breaks down as you approach the needs of the story. |
This is a mostly cool, and mostly miscast film. Matt Damon seemed out of place and they probably stuck him and Jodie Foster in for name recognition, but neither seem right for the part, and since Foster is so evil and there is no complexity to the issue it just comes off as really dumb. |
Catching Fire, or "We Are the 99%." |
Overall: 9/10 |
Actually, there are dozens of posters for this movie, many are awesome, others are like a set of trading cards for characters fighting each other in the movie. |
The fact that this movie was good shocked me. I thought the first film was at best passing with camera work that was so frantic that I found myself looking away from the screen (though I consider the book, "The Hunger Games" to be one of my all time favorites). This movie totally fixes the problem of the ... |
Beyond that this movie has more scope, higher stakes, lots of cool characters with a great deal of visual personality. There is a scene in which a guy is tied to a post and whipped by some military police, and guy with the scourge has flecks of blood on his face from the flipping the whip around. Not to s... |
There is another instance in which a character curses out the audience for having to compete in the titular Hunger Games, and her swearing is censored... a world in which "vulgarity" is censored but in which teenagers are murdered by one another on live television and it is state policy that people must wat... |
Also, the main character of Katniss is great. She is kind of a stand off bitch because she grew up in poverty, her Dad died tragically working a job that is miserable, and her Mom couldn't handle that shit; Katniss grew up too fast and in a world with too little love, which makes her emotionally retarded. ... |
There is one bigger break down in reality though that comes with all science fiction. District 12 is a poor area that mines coal, no one else mines coal, and the coal goes somewhere and is used for something (presumably power). This means that the economy has use or even need for coal. So how can the Cap... |
Tuesday, February 11, 2014 |
Movies of 2013, Superhero, pt4 |
Overall: 6/10 |
Problem 1: The love interest. |
Problem 2: This movie has terrible gameplay. |
Problem 3: Dulling of claws. |
Problem 4: Wolverine is played out. |
Similar to that only good scene in "Prometheus". |
Overall: 5/10 |
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For those obsessed with experts, Uncyclopedia has an article about: Lol. |
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Lol (plural Lolz) |
1. what people type when they never actually laugh out loud |
2. Lord Oh Lord! - An expression that refers to the feeling when we encounter the bottom |
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Explaining Southern California's economy |
Trackback: Is the California lottery's $200 million jackpot worth a shot? |
Courtesy of the California Lottery |
The jackpot for the Mega-Millions jackpot is now $200 million, and there's a drawing on Friday. This probably has lots of folks out there asking themselves, "Should I buy a ticket?" I tackled this question last December, and I haven't changed my thinking. So I'm reposting — and pointing out that the jackpot is TWICE as... |
The Early Days of a Better Nation |
Tuesday, February 24, 2009 |
Junkyard genes |
I've already cited Richard Dawkins' review of Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True, and now I'm going to do it again, because it has (ha!) a genomics connection: |
The molecular genetics revolution, which began in 1953, would have taken Darwin’s breath away and filled him with exultation. Every living creature carries within each of its cells a voluminous textual recipe for making itself. Nowadays, we can read these messages, accurately and with a completeness that is limited onl... |
For the genome is littered with dead genes. Huge wastes of DNA territory comprise a graveyard of discarded, superseded old genes (plus meaningless sequences of nonsense DNA that never functioned) with occasional islands of current, extant genes that are actually read by the translating machinery and turned into action.... |
It is wonderful enough that we can construct a tree of life based on active genes, and find that different genes agree on the same pedigree. It is even more convincing that we get the same pedigree with dead genes, whose DNA sequences represent nothing, and must be regarded only as the inert legacy of history. How woul... |
This is all true, of course, but as always there are devils in the details: via The Panda's Thumb, here's a lucid explanation of why gene trees and species trees are not necessarily quite the same. |
Labels: , |
Now all we need is access to the great evolutionary version control system! Wait... You're telling me God didn't use a VCS? Oh, damn! |
Have no fear, Max, the greatest trick God ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. What do you mean 'why?' Oh. I see. Damn you, Dawkins! |
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Because Leonardo DiCaprio isn't attached and/or wanted for enough roles in Hollywood, Deadline reports that director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu wants DiCaprio for 'The Revenant,' where he'd star as a frontiersman hellbent on revenge. Inarritu also wants Sean Penn for the film, which focuses on Hugh Glass (DiCaprio), a... |
[via Deadline] |
[Photo: Getty] |
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Whether Henry Hynoski ends up as a draft selection, or signing as a free agent, he's going to have the opportunity of a lifetime. |
Where he ends up is open to speculation, but there are some interesting possibilities. Following is a quick look at some potential NFL destinations for the 2007 Southern Columbia graduate who played collegiately at the University of Pittsburgh: |
Baltimore Ravens |
Day 3 Picks: 4 (26), 5 (34), 6 (15), 6 (26), 7 (22). |
On roster: Le'Ron McClain, 2010 stats: 28 carries for 85 yards, 21 receptions for 134 yards |
Why it's a good fit: McClain is a Pro-Bowl fullback, but when business begins in the NFL he'll be a free agent. With the shelf life of a running back so short, the Ravens may want some younger blood in the backfield. |
New England Patriots |
Day 3 Picks: 4 (28), 5 (28), 6 (28) |
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