Flock of Dodos: Afterwards

After waiting in line for an hour and a half while being entertained by a flock of three smallish people clad in overstuffed neon orange dodo costumes, I was "number seven" in the last group of ten people granted admission to Flock of Dodos. But my wait was worth it because I really enjoyed this film. Flock of Dodos was a low-key humorous film, not an attack film, a la Michael Moore, and I think it made its points very well.

The filmmaker, Randy Olson, was key to the film's success because he has a way of quickly gaining people's trust, which made for good interviews. His mother, Muffy Moose, was a brilliant addition to the film, too. Her enthusiasm and pithy comments served to link the entire film together into a coherent and amusing story.

Even though Olson is an evolutionary biologist and he did give "the last word" of the film to a scientist, he was not afraid to criticise both sides of this issue -- as is immediately obvious when you hear what those "last words" were.

Because this was a film festival, Olson was on-site to answer our questions after the film. Most of the questions focused on the effective uses of communication for bringing science to the public. Because of this discussion about communication, I was inspired to ask a question of my own. I asked what he thought of the use of blogs written by scientists for communicating science to the public. Olson was very positive about the role of blogs in communicating science, but he seemed unfamiliar with blogs written by scientists, instead focusing on blogs written by non-scientists, mentioning Carl Zimmer in particular, which is hardly surprising since he has met him (but he misnamed Zimmer's blog, referring to it by the site name, "Corante," instead of by its proper name, "The Loom", making me wonder if he actually reads any science blogs).

Because there are so many good reviews out there already, I realized I had nothing new and interesting to say about this film. Instead, I decided just to tell you a few other interesting details;

Olson mentioned that this was the 14th public screening for this film.

Olson later told me that the DVD would be released after the film has found a distributor, and he thinks that the DVD will available this autumn.

Talk of the Nation (NPR) interview with Olson.

Those of you in NYC, you have one last chance to see this film!

Sunday 7 May 400 pm at Loews Village VII 1 theatre. Be there: You'll be glad you were!