Movies
Respectful Insolence
Category archives for Movies
Moral of the story: Don’t steal chickens (I guess)
Posted by Orac on January 17, 2010 While I’m working today, enjoy some bizarre cartoon awesomeness from Max Fleischer, courtesy of Boing-Boing: Truly amazing. And 80 years old, too, with a wicked jazz soundtrack. The Fleischer brothers rule.
Tim Minchin’s “Storm” to be animated
Posted by Orac on January 10, 2010 As regular readers know, I really like Tim Minchin’s take on skepticism in general and on alternative medicine in particular. His piece de resistance thus far in his career is a “nine minute beat poem” entitled Storm, in which at a dinner party our performer is forced to deal with a female version of Mike…
When celebrities promote pseudoscience and quackery…
Posted by Orac on December 24, 2009 If there’s one thing that’s irritated the crap out of me ever since I entered the medical field, it’s celebrities with more fame than brains or sense touting various health remedies. Of late, three such celebrities have spread more misinformation and quackery than the rest of the second tier combined. Truly, together, they are the…
Data weeps: Does Brent Spiner have anti-vaccine proclivities?
Posted by Orac on October 29, 2009 Unfortunately, Brent Spiner is not living up to Commander Data’s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. Say it ain’t so, Data! Say it ain’t so! Last night, I decided for the heck of it to check my Twitter account, something I only tend to do sporadically, although I do keep a constant stream of links to the…
A report from the field…
Posted by Orac on October 3, 2009 …from PZ Myers at the AAI Convention: The good news for all the critics of this choice is that Dawkins pulled no punches. In his introduction, he praised Religulous and thanked Maher for his contributions to freethought, but he also very clearly and unambiguously stated that some of his beliefs about medicine were simply crazy.…
“It had to be a controlled demolition! Palpatine must have known!”
Posted by Orac on September 20, 2009 Three Imperial stormtroopers discuss the destruction of the Death Star on the first anniversary of its exploding: Of course Palpatine must have known! The logic is inescapable. Why else would Darth Vader have been in his Tie fighter and not in the Death Star when Luke Skywalker blew it to kingdom come? Personally, I always…
R.I.P. Patrick Swayze
Posted by Orac on September 15, 2009 I just learned that earlier today Patrick Swayze finally died of his pancreatic cancer after having survived far longer (20 months) than the average patient diagnosed with stage IV disease (less than 6 months). All I can say is: Rest in peace, Patrick. Not only did Swayze deal with his terminal illness with courage, humor,…
You knew it was coming…
Posted by Orac on September 10, 2009 …Hitler is most displeased with President Obama and what he did earlier this week:
Farrah Fawcett: Dead of cancer at age 62
Posted by Orac on June 26, 2009 Unfortunately, I saw this coming, although I had thought that it might be a few more months. Farrah Fawcett has lost her three year battle with anal cancer: Farrah Fawcett, an actress and television star whose good looks and signature flowing hairstyle influenced a generation of women and bewitched a generation of men, beginning with…
“I’ll be back”…for your love!
Posted by Orac on May 31, 2009 I’ve noticed that a hilariously literal-minded parody of that 1980s chestnut “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler has been making the rounds in the blogsophere. I was suitably amused, but I also found this new tidbit amusing. I haven’t seen the latest Terminator movie yet, but I’ve been a big fan of the…
Who should play David Irving? Part 2
Posted by Orac on May 12, 2009 I like the way some people think, Clive Davis, for instance. Remember how, two or three weeks ago, I speculated about who would play arch-Holocaust denier David Irving in a movie that’s been optioned based on his libel suit against Holocaust historian Professor Deborah Lipstadt? Well, Clive Davis has a better idea: Cinematical suggests Emma…
Who should play David Irving?
Posted by Orac on April 25, 2009 I just learned yesterday from a link a friend sent me and from Professor Deborah Lipstadt’s blog that the team of producers who made The Soloist have optioned the movie rights to Professor Lipstadt’s book History on Trial: My Day in Court With a Holocaust Denier, which is the story of the libel suit brought…
Fire Marshal Bill discusses vaccines and autism on The Huffington Post
Posted by Orac on April 23, 2009 After writing about a new low of pseudoscience published in that repository of all things antivaccine and quackery, The Huffington Post (do you even have to ask?), on Tuesday, I had hoped–really hoped–that I could ignore HuffPo for a while. After all, there’s only so much stupid that even Orac can tolerate before his logic…
I really wish this were an April Fools’ Day joke…
Posted by Orac on April 1, 2009 …but sadly, it’s not. Jenny McCarthy has struck again. Yesterday, given the release of Jenny McCarthy’s new book espousing antivaccinationism and autism quackery and the attendant media blitz the antivaccine movement has organized to promote it, I predicted that a wave of stupid is about to fall upon our great nation. Well, the stupid has…
Nazi zombies are preparing to invade the United States
Posted by Orac on January 25, 2009 Back in December, I pointed out a Norwegian movie that the Hitler Zombie definitely approves of: Dead Snow (or Død Snø in Norwegian). After all, how can you go wrong with Nazi zombies in a remote, snow bound area in Norway attacking the usual bunch of hapless but beautiful young people? I don’t know about…
Autism quackery invades my hometown
Posted by Orac on January 16, 2009 I hate to see this. I really do. I really hate it to see people who think they’re doing a good thing, who think they’re raising money for a worthy charity, totally clueless that what they are doing is supporting the rankest pseudoscience and quackery. Here’s an example from my hometown of Detroit. It’s a…
An open letter to Seth Aronson about his breast cancer movie project
Posted by Orac on January 16, 2009 I hate to finish up the week on a bit of a downer, but unfortunately this week I really wasn’t in the mood to do justice to Your Friday Dose of Woo, even though I have at least a couple of potential targets–I mean subjects–to cover for my (hopefully) fun little Friday exercise. I was…
$50 million for antivaccine madness?
Posted by Orac on January 5, 2009 Over the last year and a half, Jenny McCarthy has been, unfortunately, a fairly frequent topic of this blog. There is, of course, a reason for this. Ever since she published her first book on autism back in the summer of 2007, she has become the public face of the antivaccine movement and autism quackery.…
Two actors and their woo
Posted by Orac on December 22, 2008 Why does anyone listen to actors when they pontificate about health and medical issues? Think about it. What is it that actors do? They read lines given to them. True, some have a talent that goes beyond that; they can actually write or direct. But few of them have any more abilities when it comes…
Et tu, Anthony Edwards and Dustin Hoffman?
Posted by Orac on November 19, 2008 It looks as though the Jenny McCarthy woo factor has claimed two more celebrity victims’ brains. If a recently viewed press release is any indication, it appears that Anthony Edwards and Dustin Hoffman are getting into the autism quackery business: Internet Marketing Company joins Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Edwards and others in…
The (not-so-)Beautiful (un)Truth: The “alternative” medicine movement gets an Expelled! to call its very own
Posted by Orac on November 13, 2008 The things I do for my readers. I’m referring to a movie entitled The Beautiful Truth, links to whose website and trailers several of you have e-mailed to me over the last couple of weeks. Maybe it’s because the movie is only showing in New York and Los Angeles and hasn’t made it out of…
The Age of Autism challenges the Pharynguloid hordes
Posted by Orac on October 1, 2008 Readers may be wondering why I haven’t written about Jenny McCarthy’s latest brain dead outburst against Amanda Peet. (Actually, brain dead is too kind a description of it, given that Jenny’s retort in essence boils down to her having an “angry mob” on her side making Amanda “completely wrong.”) It’s because I decided to try…
Hitler pans the Torchwood season finale
Posted by Orac on May 31, 2008 Ever since it appeared as an “adult” spinoff of Doctor Who, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Torchwood. The first season was about as uneven as anything I’ve ever seen, ranging from a truly execrable (and, even worse, unforgivably stupidly and badly written) “homage” to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Countrycide) that ranks among the worst…
The obligatory holiday weekend Indiana Jones open thread
Posted by Orac on May 24, 2008 It’s Memorial Day weekend here in the States. For those of us lucky enough not to be on call, working retail, or otherwise being forced to go to work, it means three days away from work. Although I’ll be working a bit on various protocols and papers, it nonetheless means three days away from the…
A hometown publication “gets it” about Expelled!
Posted by Orac on April 24, 2008 Heh. Before I abandon the disgusting piece of fecal matter that is Ben Stein’s Expelled! for (hopefully) a long, long time, if not forever, I can’t resist pointing out that it’s good to see that at least someone totally gets it and sees through the lies. It’s even better to see it coming from a…