Movies
Category archives for Movies
Make the Hugos Better
Posted by Chad Orzel on July 22, 2009 Worldcon is less than two weeks off, which means that it’s time once again for the SF part of blogdom to explode with complaints about the quality of the nominees. There are some reasonable reactions, but it’s mostly slightly over-the-top broadsides. It’s worth emphasizing again that the source of the problem is also the solution…
MJ, Fame, Writing, and More
Posted by Chad Orzel on July 10, 2009 If you’re desperate for something to fill your Friday afternoon, and not the comment-leaving sort, you could do a lot worse than spending an hour and a half (give or take) with Chuck Klosternman and Bill Simmons in their two part ESPN podcast. It’s nominally about sports, but they spend a good bit of time…
Three Quarks Voting, X-Change Files
Posted by Chad Orzel on June 1, 2009 Two noteworthy things in the meta-blog category: 1) The 3 Quarks Daily science blogging prize nominations are up, and it’s a great list of sciencey bloggy goodness. If you’re looking for a way to procrastinate, you could kill several days reading all 171 entries. Once you’re done reading them, go vote for your favorite. The…
We Just Turned the Machine Off, and the Antimatter Went Away
Posted by Chad Orzel on May 14, 2009 I’m a little surprised that I haven’t seen bloggers commenting on Tom Hanks’s appearance on The Daily Show, in which he talks about CERN: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M – Th 11p / 10c Tom Hanks thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor Everything he says is pretty much true, but…
Pop Culture Interlude: A Good Name for a Band
Posted by Chad Orzel on April 23, 2009 A little while ago, I was pointed to Jim Munger’s blog, which is full of ranting about various topics. Not quite to the standards of alt.peeves, back in the day, but some of it is entertaining. It also includes several mentions of his band, Better Than Abstinence. There seemed to be something wrong with the…
Women, Fast Cars, and Physics
Posted by Chad Orzel on April 23, 2009 I’m speaking, of course, about this past weekend’s Bloggingheads conversation between Jennifer Ouellette and Diandra Leslie-Pelecky. They both blog at Cocktail Party Physics, and Diandra has written The Physics of NASCAR. It’s a good Bloggingheads, covering a wide range of topics related to physics, sports, and entertainment. Jennifer talks about the work of the Science…
Six Questions (an attempt at a musical “meme”)
Posted by Chad Orzel on April 16, 2009 The other day, I wanted to hear the seasonally-appropriate Hold Steady song “How a Resurrection Really Feels” (“She crashed into the Easter Mass, with her hair done up in broken glass, She was limping left on broken heels and she said ‘Father, can I tell your congregation how a resurrection really feels?’”), so I punched…
Tolkien Not Religious?
Posted by Chad Orzel on March 27, 2009 Arts & Letters Daily had a link to a City Journal article about religious symbolism in science fiction, which attempts to claim that there has been a recent swing toward Christian symbolism in the genre (at least, in movie and television SF– the only books mentioned are forty-ish years old). There are a number of…
Hugo Nominations Announced
Posted by Chad Orzel on March 20, 2009 The nominees for this year’s Hugo Awards were announced last night. The most important category is, as always, Best Novel: Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Morrow; Atlantic UK) The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury UK) Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen; HarperVoyager UK) — Free download Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit…
(Wis)Con or Bust
Posted by Chad Orzel on March 18, 2009 In an effort to wrest something positive from the smoking ruins of the fannish precincts of LiveJournal, a number of people (Kate included) have put together a community to raise money to provide financial assistance to fans of color who want to attend Wiscon or some other convention. They’re auctioning off a lot of interesting…
