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This post contains no spoilers.
I rewatched Primer this week. I had seen it a couple years ago as one of the first movies I got from Netflix the first time I signed up. It was a successful recommendation. Since I was a kid, I have been totally intrigued with time travel and time travel movies. Time travel movies rank among my favorite films, like 12 Monkeys, Time Bandits, the Butterfly Effect, etc. Time travel books are great too, like The Time Traveler’s Wife
Primer is a time travel movie in a league of its own. I think it’s pretty much impossible to fully grasp the first time through. It is probably the most confusing movie I have ever seen (that is not “absurd” anyway). It’s been bumping around in my head for the past couple years, driving me to see it again. Mike D’Angelo in Esquire said it’s like “following the path of one blade on a high-speed ceiling fan.” That’s a fairly accurate description.
refresh
This post is spoiler free.
I finally got to see Juno tonight. It’s been sitting at the top of my Netflix queue for nearly two months with a long wait. What a great movie! One of my favorite parts was the soundtrack. There were several great songs by Kimya Dawson (of the Moldy Peaches) and then a performance by the two leads of the Moldy Peaches song “Anyone Else But You.” The version sung in the movie is missing a few stanzas. My favorite of the missing ones is below (sung by Kimya):
“Up up down down left right left right B A start
Just because we use cheats
Doesn’t mean we’re not smart
I don’t see what anyone can see in anyone else
But you…”
Go geek references (and Thundercats)! And speaking of cheats, trying using that cheat code in Google Reader (minus the start button at the end of course).
And returning to Netflix: they are removing individual profiles from accounts as of September 1st. What a boneheaded, retardafreakin’ idea. Supposedly it will help them make the website better. I hope it’s a lot better since this change has me pissed.
My taste in music is definitely in flux. Five years ago I would have found this intolerable, but now I can’t stop listening to it. I blame Pandora. The musical journeys it takes you on can be transformational.
Unfortunately the video stops before the song is over, but YouTube offers several full length suggestions immediately after. The videos themselves are all insane, so I didn’t want to endorse any. I just listen to the sound track in another tab and don’t watch them.
This question was a central theme in the movie The Nines, which I recommend. It also came up in Revolver, which I just watched tonight, though it wasn’t asked explicitly. Instead, the question is who is your worst enemy? The movie’s position is that it is not external, but internal. I think I can say that without spoiling anything. The trick is to avoid the lie that your perception is infallible. Pulling that off is a different matter altogether, though it is a helpful trait for a good scientist.
The lack of posts lately is due to the semester winding down. And by winding down, I mean grinding me up.
So in lieu of something substantive, here is another re-envisioning of Star Wars. I posted about Steampunk Star Wars a couple weeks ago, but this one is slightly more recent — taking its inspiration from World War II. Boba Fett and the Stormtrooper are my favorites. I can imagine a Death Star (not featured) that looks like a giant steel ball with steel panels bolted together. The weapon dish would be steel mesh. Many antennae would protrude from the poles.
Just stumbled on this really cool site if you like steampunk and Star Wars. Being a huge fan of both, I recommend checking it out. If you’re a Star Wars purist, avoiding it might be healthier. The reimagining of Jabba the Hut and the Death Star are the best imo.
Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke died yesterday. He touched many lives through his writing and his ideas had an impact on me at an early age with short stories like “The Nine Billion Names of God” and movies based on his books like 2010 (which I saw in the theater) and later 2001 (which I saw as a young man). His novel Rendezvous with Rama is being made into a movie and IMDB is quoting 2009 as the release date. I thought it was interesting to find out he had been living in Sri Lanka for some time.
I visited my family in Ohio this past weekend and my uncle made a few interesting points. He’s an old-school spring engineer, meaning he learned coming up through the trade rather than by going to school, and he supervises a number of employees at a relatively small spring company. My grandfather used to own a spring company called, shockingly enough, Adams & Sons Spring Co. That was later bought out and a number of the employees were moved to a different plant, including my dad and uncle. So anyhow, my uncle was telling me a story, which I won’t go into, but the heart of it is that you should not wait for people to hand you “what you deserve.” If you are a leader, regardless of your job title, then lead. If you see someone who needs help, don’t wait for them to ask you. Help. Show that you have the initiative. That’s probably fairly obvious, I mean we’ve all heard it before, but it came at a particularly important time for me.
I’ve been on twitter for a while now, though I don’t update it super-regularly like some people. It’s fun and I hope more of my friends start using it, but I’ve noticed an interesting trend. Just about anything is open to potential spam. Friendster is sick with it. MySpace is abominable. LinkedIn seems fairly immune and I’ve gotten very few spam friend requests from Facebook. Twitter has so far been very good about it, but there is a new trend that I’ve found interesting. You can follow people and people can follow you on twitter. So your status updates are public and potentially seen by thousands of people. How do you increase the number of people who follow you? Follow them, of course! I’m having random people follow me left and right. It only helps me, since I don’t follow them back, but it’s interesting to note.
I just watched Next starring Nicolas Cage and Jessica Biel. Oh and Julianne Moore. I liked it a lot, mainly because it brought together a slew of my favorite elements: people who can see the future (precogs) and nuclear explosions. And other explosions. Plus it was based on a short story by one of my favorite writers of all time: Philip K. Dick. Now if they had only found different actors than Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore, we might have had a more appealing movie. Spoilers beneath the fold. This isn’t so much a review as a statement of what I found cool about it.
No spoiler review.
Last night I watched Beowulf, the recent Robert Zemeckis version. My review can be summed up simply: it blew. Hardcore. Before it was over, I wanted to tear my eyes out. And sadly, it is true that what is seen, cannot be unseen.
Tonight, Donna and I watched The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Something I had heard as a kid about movies was that the longer the movie title, the worse the movie. Nothing could be more wrong in this case. What I say in this review should not be considered a spoiler, since the facts are a matter of historical record. Plus the title gives away the crucial plot point, so it’s not like you were going to be surprised when Robert Ford kills Jesse James. I won’t go into further details about the specifics of what happens.
What struck me as truly powerful in this movie was the development of Robert Ford’s character. Casey Affleck did a great job and deserved his Oscar nomination. Brad Pitt didn’t detract from the film, either. I highly recommend it if you love westerns, though it wasn’t really a western in the conventional sense.
At one point in the film, there is a guy in a bar singing a song that struck me as particularly cool. Lo and behold, it is a real song: “The Ballad of Jesse James.” Does it mean I’m getting old that I like folk songs so much? I’ve included the lyrics below the jump.
Jesse James was a train and bank robber who killed at least 17 people. He went by the name of Thomas Howard in order to escape the law. While still alive, he inspired the popular media so much, people were publishing made-up stories of his exploits. Children grew up idolizing him. When he died, he was transformed into a Robin Hood figure. The ballad portrays him as a man who stole from the rich to give to the poor. What was it about him that so captured people’s hearts and minds? I think we can’t resist the idea of that kind of freedom. He was beholden to no man. He had no boss and he thwarted the powerful. He had his own cunning and skill and the bravery to use them. He was a murderer and a thief, and people wished they could be him. He is still famous over a hundred and twenty years after his death.
While watching the 2000 version of Henry James’ The Golden Bowl, I heard the once-common phrase “The deuce only knows…” I’m always looking for vintage profanity, and this appealed to me strongly. I’ve heard it hundreds or thousands of times before, of course, but here it was brought to the fore of my attention. After some brief research, I found ties to 16th Century Northern German, Family Guy, and playing dice. The word deuce seems most strongly tied in meaning to “the devil,” and is used interchangeably in old-fashioned profanity (cf. What the devil and What the deuce).
There are attested uses of the phrase “Was der Daus!” in German from the 16th Century, which has my money for being the real origin of the phrase. Daus meant “devil” though the modern German is “Teufel.” Deuce also means “two” and comes from the French deux. Supposedly, the combination of the German phrase and the playing of dice led to the phrase entering English usage. Rolling two (the Devil’s eyes) inspired the curse, since that was the lowest score and therefore, a loss. I’m not sold on this particular coincidence. It seems too much like folk etymology of the sort you hear in email forwards. Lastly, while I enjoy Family Guy enormously when I hear it, I very seldomly get the opportunity to watch an episode, so the tie to Stewie was lost on me until Google unearthed it.
And when OpenEphyra is given the question What is the origin of the word deuce? the answer is “Watkins.” It offers as evidence this page. That page poses the question What does the word deuce mean? but the answer has nothing to do with my information need. Also, the word Watkins never even appears on that page, so no idea where it came from.
Become my friend on Netflix. I think it helps that you are actually already on Netflix. :P
A short while ago, I wrote about the movie The Island starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. The studio was sued by the makers of Parts: the Clonus Horror for copyright infringement. A judge agreed that the case could proceed to court, at which point it was settled for a rumored 7-figure amount. Netflix, in a moment of recommender system success, presented me with none other than this movie! Fortunately for me, it was the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version. As usual, it was hilarious and far more enjoyable than if I had watched this atrocious bomb of a movie with no commentary.
Spoilers about Parts: the Clonus Horror and The Island are to follow.
I just got back from watching Cloverfield. There are very few movies so interesting to me that I will actually go by myself to see them. I had tried to get a friend to come along, but he complained of “homework” and other such nonsense, and Donna can’t handle anything with monsters in it. Without spoiling anything, I will say that the movie was absolutely freaking awesome. It was definitely a brilliant new take on the classic monster movie.
Since this is my blog, let me just rant quickly: people who bring six-year-olds to movies like this are bad parents. You’re just not a good parent if you do this. You are bad. And stupid. You may think your kid can handle it, but you are wrong. And stupid. Ok, back to the movie.
Spoilers follow. I am putting a preview here to take up space on the page to prevent you from accidentally reading further if you don’t want to see the spoilers.
I have been wanting to see The Island
Warning: spoilers to follow. Read the rest of this entry »
Taking me completely by surprise, “Running the World” by Jarvis Cocker is one of the coolest songs I’ve heard in a very long time. I’ll leave it to you to figure out exactly what he’s saying (it’s NSFW). The lyrics are just plain awesome. This kind of song grabs a hold of the part of me that appreciates the beauty of sadness. I’m not sure which I appreciate more: the beauty of sadness or the beauty of majesty. The beauty I appreciate most of all is self-sacrifice. I can’t see it without struggling really hard to not cry. Another song that uses the beauty of sadness is “Mad World” (the remake by Gary Jules from Donnie Darko).
I happened upon the song because I was searching for a clip of a scene near the end of Children of Men. So as not to spoil anything for the random reader who hasn’t seen the movie, it’s a moment of peace in the chaos, the characters are filled with a profound awe, and it is broken by intense violence (it also appears briefly in the clip below). This video appears to be promotional material used to influence the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) people to nominate it for Best Picture. It didn’t win anything, since the Academy is full of crap.
Enjoy. Oh and the video contains spoilers (and is NSFW).
You gotta hand it to a guy who drops all his money to pursue his dream. Even when that dream is a movie about a baked bean killing people with two dragon pistols. This was done by the lead animator of Matrix Reloaded (Jeff Lew) and looks like it might be amusing. Hard to say, though. At the very least, I like to see people working outside (or on the fringes) of the Hollywood superstructure. He was just the animator for Matrix Reloaded and the graphics were great despite the other problems the movie had. Personally I liked it, but I know a lot of people view it as an abomination.
Saw this on the blog of Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape. Maybe NSFW, certainly the language is very intense, so if you’re offended by the granddaddy f-word, it makes an appearance about 47 times (rough guess, I’m not gonna bother to count). In any case, it’s a great example of what good editing can do. The best example of this I’ve seen is a classic that everyone has probably seen: Shining.
I read The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper a few years ago at the insistence of my ex-brother-in-law. It was one of his favorite books from his childhood and I believe he put it near the level of The Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings (but not quite). I figured that was bloody high praise, but waited a while before I got around to it. I’m not above reading kids books and seeing kids movies. Especially when they promise to be dark. I love dark fantasy. So anyhow, I enjoyed the book, though there were parts that were a little slow.
And now of course, there is a movie coming out next Friday. I’m curious how well they will pull it off. I never read the whole series, but in the first book there was a lot of mystery about the back story. Hopefully they won’t destroy that feeling.
A meteor crashed in southern Peru last weekend and over 200 locals have been claiming illness. Symptoms include headaches, nausea, and respiratory problems. They claim this was caused by the gas emanating from the crash site, which has been confirmed as actually having been caused by a meteor. Scientists are currently examining the site and composition of the meteor, which was probably iron since it survived entry all the way to the surface. Scientists were quick to dismiss claims by locals. That makes sense since people from uneducated corners of the world often spew some pretty fantastical stories. Is it just good skepticism or does it also display a little bit of prejudice against the uneducated? Doctors are currently thinking that the loud, terrible noise a meteor makes when entering the atmosphere may have frightened these Peruvian villagers, inducing psychosomatic manifestations [source].
I’m not suggesting we just take every crackpot at their word, but to me real skepticism means withholding judgment until evidence begins to accumulate and point in one direction or another. At that point, your confidence in a particular hypothesis increases, but absolute certainty must be withheld forever, because some bit of evidence may present itself. Granted these scientists weren’t claiming that it was not a meteor, but they were quick to dismiss it and come down on the side of no-meteor-and-crazy-bush-people.
Personally, I’m holding out for evidence that the illnesses are caused by an alien viral infection that will soon begin to convert the locals into their mindless slaves, sparking a movement that will sweep the globe. Which reminds me, I want to see The Invasion.
Update
Bad Astronomy just posted an interesting take on this. Rather than being a meteor impact crater, perhaps this was a Peruvian scud missile gone awry. Also, as pointed out on this post, there is no record in the history of meteorites where people have gotten sick by being near the crater and much of the reports from the scene did not sound like the event was caused by a meteorite, which probably explains the fact that scientists were coming down so hard against the meteorite possibility initially. It’ll be interesting to see how this turns out.
Update 2
Pravda online, a Russian tabloid, is reporting that the meteorite was actually a US spy satellite that the Air Force itself shot down. This is by far the best (read: most hilarious) explanation I’ve seen yet.
Over Christmas while visiting family in Greenville, SC, I bought a stack of books at my favorite old haunt: Barnes & Noble. Among those books was Stardust
Returning from this digression, I actually finished reading Stardust just prior to said vacation, but it had taken me several months to do so. Really that’s a shame when you consider how short the book is. Just before I finished reading it, I saw a preview on TV that looked extremely familiar: an air ship, a fallen star, a unicorn, and Wall. I love when a movie comes out that really gets me excited. When Stargate
I deliberated reviewing the movie here with spoilers, but decided in the end to avoid that. I highly recommend reading the book. One of the things I like about Neil Gaiman is that he takes old ideas, like fairy tales, and makes them new. If you haven’t read his short story “Snow, Glass, Apples” (off of Smoke and Mirrors
Sometimes I just get this depressing feeling that some research team somewhere is going to finally do us all in. A while back, it was theorized that the Large Hadron Collider could possibly be capable of creating mini black holes. Seriously, one day they are going to do something crazy at the LHC and Bill Murray is going to keep waking up in a little town in Pennsylvania on the same day until Andy MacDowell finally falls in love with him. I’m exaggerating (only) slightly.
So anyhow, another harbinger of doom is the recent progress in wet artificial life. I tend to think of artificial life as being computational in origin, since I’m constantly exposed to AI at school. WAL, as the name suggests, is not computational, but biological. It seems to me that once people are able to create life from scratch and begin to actually get a grasp on how it works, we’re in for trouble. Here is a nice little encouraging quote from Mark Bedau, COO of ProtoLife in Venice.
“It’s going to be a big deal and everybody’s going to know about it. We’re talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways — in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict.”
Indeed.
