I’ve been reading a library book titled Great Scientific Experiments by Rom Harré. It contains discussion about the scientific method and how experiments contribute to it. It has 20 experiments that “changed out view of the world”.
It’s very interesting reading. A lot of each experiment’s discussion talks about the history and preconceptions that led to the particular experiment and how the experiment was a linchpin.
I like it. You might too.
Jenn and I went to see Mama Mia with some friends last weekend. The verdict: ack.
And that’s “ack ack ACK ACK” of the Mars-Attacks variety; watch this movie and your mind will melt.
It’s not bad so much as deeply annoying in some parts. I’m going to come at this sort of backwards: If the actors and actresses had been 100% non-big-names (like the lead Amanda Seyfried) then this would probably have been a pleasant experience. Amanda plays the sole daughter, named Sophie, of a former wild-child played by Meryl Streep. Streep’s character, Donna, had a series of flings 20 years ago with three guys in two weeks leading to the unknowability of who fathered Sophie. Sophie has the brilliant plan to invite all three father-possibles to her wedding in order to see which one is the sperm-donator.
The beginning of the movie starts out well. Things are topical and direct; the plot moves forward without any obvious forcing in order to fit in ABBA songs. (Oh yes! If you didn’t know, the entire story is hinged around various ABBA songs, with the lyrics telling the story of different parts of the characters’ lives.) Amanda is both a good singer and dancer, which given that this is a musical is somewhat (just a bit) important. Several scenes go by with Sophie as the center of the action.
Unfortunately [whoosh!] Sophie is suddenly sidelined and we learn that what we thought was a musical about Sophie (who can sing and dance) is actually about Donna (Meryl Streep) who can sing, mostly, but can’t dance at all. Then one of the father-possibles (Pierce Brosnan) joins in the singing and your head melts.
Ladies and Gentlemen, attention! Pierce Brosnan may have lots of face appeal, and look good in a clingy-wet white shirt, but he can’t sing worthy of the silver screen. When he opened up with his first lines, the audience in my theater started laughing, and we weren’t laughing with him. Ahh, Pierce. I’m sorry.
The various so-so voices and the one or two AHHHHH voices have managed to absoutely ruin my childhood. ABBA played a big part in my musical upbringing. I know most ABBA songs and a few of them word for word. Now as I listen to the ABBA Gold Album on my Ipod, I keep having flashes of the movie, with Streep or Brosnan doing their best to cause me palpitations.1
On story notes, the plot seemed to be rather forced at times because they just had to have “Does Your Mother Know” or other song in the movie. In this respect it was in the highest traditions of the “musical” where the story is heading full tilt for the next station when suddenly everyone stops and sings about it for a while. Some musicals do this better than others. I’m going to place Mama Mia in the “others” category. There were also a few weird, random, sudden plot developments that just popped up without any foreshadowing or obvious causes. One of these sent my head spinning, especially because I’ve seen the BBC Pride and Prejudice so many times. That’s the only hint I’m giving.
So, in order of movie plot development:
1I’m listening to ABBA, attempting to associate something else other than the movie with the music. I may have to put these songs on my running mix list in order to alleviate the damage.
Has anyone besides me and Jenn been watching ABC Family’s The Middleman? We have found it to be fun and cute; nice tasty chewing gum for the brain.
It isn’t Dr. Who, but we think it’s worth our time.
Write write write. Writing about writing? I write in order to become better at writing? Ascribo ergo sum?
I’ve spent a great deal of time in the last few years writing. Usually it’s miniscule blog postings or rambling opinion pieces. I’ve been writing approximately 1,500 word essays on traffic engineering (see Talking Traffic) at two-week intervals for the past year. Occasionally I am forced (damn job!) to write reports and memos and emails and letters at work. These, of course, receive the lion’s share of my editing energy. It seems that I am able to write at least a lot, even if it is not literature.
After last year’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month: November) I had given it a thought that I might participate. After all, one of the thrusts of NaNoWriMo is to write, but not to edit. You can write a great deal if you don’t go back to fix all the bits that are wrong as you go.
But why wait ’til November? I turn 35 this weekend and it’s one of my New Year’s Resolutions to write at least one (crappy) short story this year. Why not make it a crappy novel instead? There’s also no real reason to do it during November because that happens to be when Thanksgiving is; an inconvenient holiday for project completion.
No, I’m thinking that the middle of September to the middle of October is an appropriate 30 days for this potential project. It’s after Dragon*Con, so I won’t be distracted there. It’s at the middle-end of my marathon preparation, but that shouldn’t interfere any more than normal. I think that’s a good time to sit down and write something crappy and derivative. Alien elves defeat global warming after the fall of the United States or something like that. With nanotechnology and dragons, too.
Have I mentioned recently the Baen Free Library? No, I don’t believe that I have.
Therein you find dozens of full-length novels, entirely free. Baen has been leading the charge and now other publishers are doing it, too.
If you don’t mind reading on a screen, this is a great resource.
We saw The Dark Knight last Saturday. Verdict: “Very Good, but Traumatic.”
Of course, it was traumatic because it was so good. And it was so good because of Heath Ledger. He carried the movie from start to finish and without his performance as crazy-fucking-psycho Joker, the film would have been just another Superhero Action Flick. Ledger managed to portray the Joker in a fashion that was both insanely random yet still an evil genius. He was perfect in the role which drew from the beginnings of the comic as the anti-rational villain. The Joker in this piece was no mere villain, he was the epitome of chaos and anarchy. It seemed like he didn’t know what he was going to do from moment to moment and his very randomness had me clutching the arms of the seat a few times because I was afraid the film makers were going to take some of his actions to their logical conclusion.
I had a few issues with the wheels-within-wheels complexity of some of the Joker’s plots, though. There were several on screen moments when Joker said (essentially) “I’ve go no plans, I’m crazy!” yet his various diabolical deeds speak of highly sophisticated management and control of resources and people. But, Ledger did such a good job with the Joker that I can let it slide.
Batman, played by strong-jawed-boy, was only ok. He did everything he was supposed to but he really wasn’t the main character. Joker was, as well as Harvey Dent, played by Aaron Eckhart, whom I love. Harvey, the idealistic new District Attorney for Gotham, does a great job filling the role of the White Knight in this movie, with a twist.
Maggie Gyllenhaal was fine as Rachel, but her character was overshadowed by everyone else. She was mostly there as a plot device, which I found a bit disappointing. We also learn some back history on Alfred and I wonder if it jives with the comics.
Overall: Go see it. It’s long (2.2 hours) and it feels like it ends about three times, but it’s good. There are some plot irregularities and some weirdness with Batman’s super technology, but again, I can let it slide.
I mentioned before that it’s traumatic? Heath Ledger as the Joker will have you biting your fingernails…
Edit: One of the reasons I liked this movie was because I’m far enough away from the comic books that I didn’t know what was going to happen. Do yourself a favor: if you don’t already know what’s going on, don’t look it up beforehand.
After a long long long time, I’ve finally watched The Breakfast Club. It was one of my lacks in “classic cinema” if anything made in the 80’s can yet be called classic. My Verdict? So-so.
I thought the story was well put together in most places and that the acting was done superbly (with a few scenes that were, unfortunately, a stretch at best), but I have a tough time liking a movie that I don’t identify with. I’m 34, soon 35, and as Jenn put it, “…identifying more with the Janitor than any other character.” It’s been a while since I was an angsty teenager, if I ever really was.
Alas, a pedestalized movie has fallen in my eyes. I should have watched it twenty years ago. Now I need to watch The Graduate.
Jenn and I saw Hancock on opening night, yesterday. Short and sweet version: It met expectations (Jenn says it didn’t quite meet her expectations, but close).
If you saw the previews, and how could you not if you own a TV or a computer, then you’ll be happy that they didn’t bait and switch like so many other movies do. A lot of the preview scenes occur during the first third to half of the movie, so there’s plenty that you don’t already “know” to see.
Spoilers Ahoy, but if you’ve seen the previews, then you’re safe. If you haven’t seen the previews and you want to go to the movie fresh, stop reading.
Hancock was fundamentally about the human condition rather than a straight up super hero action film. (I’m going to go out on a limb here because my observations may seem redundant to people who read a lot of comic books. I don’t therefore my insightful thoughts may be old hat.) Hancock is a super-being who is invulnerable, can fly, and is super strong. He is also alone, and the scenes of him as a drunken wino in the previews were, I think, the most telling part of the movie. Here is a guy who is fundamentally separate from the human race; he has no real brotherhood with anybody. He can take whatever he wants, and no one could stop him (there’s a scene which reflects on that). Think about how that could mess with your psyche! You’ve got skillz, but you don’t actually belong. There’s some deep-seated moral issues there that the movie touched on, but didn’t fully explore. I found myself wishing that I had had this idea five years ago, and had written about it. It’s a fascinating topic to explore, although I don’t think my ending would have been as happy as the movie.
Anyway. It was a good movie. I enjoyed it and would see it again in the theater. There were some weird things about it, though. For one, it’s rated PG-13 but I could swear I heard one of the characters say “fuck”. I thought that was an instant “R” rating? Beyond that, there was a lot of “shit” and “asshole” in the dialogue, plus the violence level was quite high, but other than the “fuck” I suppose they hit the PG-13.
I wondered during the movie where Hancock got his money. At no time does he ever do anything that might earn him cash, so how does he purchase his liquor? Hmmmm…
Another nitpick was… never mind. It’s a spoiler. Let’s just say that there was an abrupt character transformation that they milked a bit heavily to provide some slapstick. I thought it was over done in that scene.
It was good. Go see it.
14:21 Edit: I totally forgot to mention something! If you have an advanced degree, especially if you’re a college professor, there is a scene in this movie that you have to see/listen to. It’s a must. You will be tickled pink, I promise.
Jenn and I saw “Wanted” this evening. I’m sure our primary motivation to see this was Angelina Jolie, which shows what sort of literary taste we have.
Verdict: Not bad, but definitely not good. It’s a bloody action film with lots of un-ponderable and questionably crazy action bits. Doff your skeptic hat before you walk through the door and you’ll be fine.
If you’ve seen any of the previews then you know that this is about a group of assassins who are just so damn good that they can bend the flight of bullets by flinging their arms around while firing their weapons. My radar pinged on that one a bit because don’t bullets spin rapidly already? But I put that out of my mind. The only tooth-grinding unrealistic moment for me was when a passenger train car goes sliding down a gorge with it’s ends grinding against opposite rock walls and ends up stopping, intact and upright, before hitting the bottom. But, I took off my hat before going in, so I was ok.
Should you see it? Probably not in the theaters. Rent it. Much better to save the money to see “Hancock” twice.
Aren’t you glad you’ve got me who will go see these movies even knowing they will maybe suck?
I watched In the Name of the King last night, a movie that I was fully aware was supposed to be horribly bad. I still wanted to see it, despite the reviews, just to say I’d seen it and fully experienced its badness. If you feel the same way I did, that you just have to see the movie, I encourage you to resist.
The entertaining moments in this film are entertaining due to their “what the fuck is up with that?” factor rather than any contribution they make to the plot or story. The spinning-twirling-choreographed tree-ninjas are one such item, as are the amazonian cirque du soleil vine people. Also, it’s important to remember than if you’re going to go all bad-ass and place yourself in the catapult’s launch bucket, it’s much more fun to do it while on fire.
Burt Reynolds (Smokey Himself!) is the King and must have been stoned off his ass when he agreed to take this part. Leelee Sobieski has a speaking part in the movie although I’m not yet certain what her role was. She doesn’t even show much leg skin, which was disappointing. Jason Statham is the star and does a normal amount of ass-kicking, although the development of his ass-kicking-ness ability is handwaved away (he’s a farmer, after all, and always was). Ray Liotta has demonstrated that he’ll take any part, no matter how terrible, and Matthew Lilliard reprises his role from Scream with much derring-do but little resolution.
I saw it, now I can move on.
Speaking of bad movies, here’s a revised script of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal OH MY GOD PLEASE LET IT STOP Skull.