Entertainment
pharyngula | August 21, 2007Ars Technica has an article on bad science in entertainment, with a list of items that were particularly annoying:
Any time Star Trek tried to do biology. They may have been awful with all the other areas of science, but I'm a biologist, and I know they were awful with this. Note to film and TV producers: science grad students work for peanuts. Buy one.
Quixote follows through with a specific example:
Take an example from an episode of Star Trek- The Next Generation. There's a big disaster as everyone evolves backward into insects (small problem right there…) and Beverly Crusher is saying…
pharyngula | August 14, 2007I sometimes say things that outrage people and get me volumes of angry mail. This will be one of those times.
I saw the latest Harry Potter movie tonight, and I must confess: I wasn't a fan, nor am I particularly interested in the whole series. My kids liked them, and I read the first couple, but after the first, the rest just seemed like the same old story — didn't I read this one before? Let me guess; he goes to school, faces a growing dread of a bad guy, plays a game of Quidditch, discovers that someone who should be on the side of goodness is actually very, very naughty, poof, there's a…
pharyngula | July 30, 2007It's a wiki with the tagline, "It's a fictional world purely imagined by its community", and it isn't Conservapædia! Galaxiki is a galaxy-building exercise that lets you create star systems and populate them with stories and details. One bummer is that they charge you for the right to create new stars — that doesn't seem like a smart idea, since you'd think they'd want more contributions, at least early in the game — but you can edit somewhat freely, and there are swarms of randomly generated star systems to play with.
pharyngula | July 27, 2007Cleanse your palate of the unpleasant aftertaste of that last video with this loud instrumental from Rush — it's the "Malignant Narcissism" video at the top of the page. I like how it illustrates the advance of religion as a branching snake. If you don't like wmv or mov formats, it seems to be popular among the guitar heroes of youtube, so you can at least listen to it, even if you don't get to see the abrahamic viper.
pharyngula | July 20, 2007
This is excellent, but I have a request that I hope Roy grants someday — my personal favorite is "America" from his "Faulty Intelligence" CD. Trust me, it's awesome.
Aww, heck, they're all good. I also want to see him on The Daily Show, and playing on the White House lawn outside GW Bush's window.
pharyngula | June 28, 2007This is horribly tasteless: it's a trailer for a new movie based on a video game by Uwe Boll (for those unfamiliar with his oeuvre, I'll just mention the combination of the words "movie", "video game", and "Uwe Boll" represents the very worst of humorlessly plodding, dumb cinema). So why did I find this clip amusing?
pharyngula | June 27, 2007Chris Mooney makes a point about the supernatural thriller genre.
Indeed, nearly five years ago I wrote a column entitled "Conversion Fantasies" in which I made the following point: In movies and TV series about the paranormal, the sterotypical "skeptic" figure always seems to convert into a believer by the end. And why does this occur? Well, because in fiction, the author can control the laws of nature, and in these fictional narratives (which show an abundant lack of creativity), the supernatural always turns out to be real.
I think an excellent example of this trend is the Scooby Doo…
pharyngula | June 25, 2007This is a dangerous link: the Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form. A number of obsessed lunatics have been submitting limericks on each word in the dictionary — they've got over forty one thousand entries so far — so it can just suck you in.
Here, try looking up limericks on evolution. The really hazardous part is when you start thinking you could do a much better job than that…
pharyngula | June 23, 2007Hey, Stevens County and all the residents thereabout: you can catch a performance of Inherit the Wind tonight at 7, or tomorrow in a matinee at 2, in lovely Barrett, Minnesota. I'll be there. My colleague in the biology department, Van Gooch, will be acting in the show, so UMM people should definitely go.
pharyngula | June 5, 2007Chris Clarke claims I'm doing a cameo in this video. Was I the jogger? The policeman? The nun? The construction worker? Oh, hey…there I am. Nice outfit.
Chris also wants me to introduce him to Julieta. Sorry, Chris, I think she'd find your appendages…inadequate.
pharyngula | May 30, 2007Arrrr, curse ye, jpf. How dare you reveal this abomination to me? What's this crazy born-again doing reviewing a pirate movie as a justification for his dogma?
But back to Jack for a second — sorry, Captain Jack. I was thinking about one of the central themes of this movie which involves the principal characters, one that you've most likely picked up on it as well:
Resurrection from the dead
As it turns out, getting swallowed by a nasty beastie called the Kraken is a bad thing, so one of the key story lines in this film is a desperate need for Captain Jack to come back from the dead so the…
pharyngula | May 29, 2007Here's a cute cartoon: Moral Orel learns about the book of Geniusis. I hadn't seen this series before, but it's much, much better than the preachy Davey and Goliath shows I remember seeing all the time as a kid (which I have just learned was of Lutheran origin. Figures. It was so darned bland.)
pharyngula | May 28, 2007That was a sigh of contentment. I went off to see the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie with very low expectations—like the last one, I expected an extremely muddled plot, lots of random noise that didn't carry the story forward, and many places where the movie could have been edited down a bit. I was right! But it also had wonderful naval battles, glorious swashbuckling, and finally, the lady lead acquired a bit of ferocity. I just sank down in my seat and savored the unabashed piratey goodness and didn't worry about the details, and all was well.
Except for one thing: finding my…
pharyngula | May 28, 2007Dr Joan Bushwell makes a find: Mitch Benn's rock anthem to Richard Dawkins. It is most excellent party music.
pharyngula | May 11, 2007James Kakalios gets to use the latest Spider-Man movie as an excuse to explain the physics of granular materials in the New York Times. Good thing they didn't ask a biologist about Sandman … all I could think about was that there was no way a loose aggregate of coarse sand would be able to mimic the function of the human brain, which is built upon the sub-micron-scale specific organization of diverse molecules. I would be such a wet blanket.
No, wait, I did think of another thing: could you incapacitate Sandman by dumping your cat's litterbox on him? I'd think he'd go running off to do some…
pharyngula | May 11, 2007Rumor has it that Hammer Films might be coming back—I don't know if this is good news or not. I love the old movies and have a stack of their DVDs right next to me, but all the money in horror movies seems to be in ghastly 1½ hour extended torture scenes, like the hideous Hostel and unwatchable Saw series. Let's hope they don't taint the brand by putting some hack like Rob Zombie to churn out seedy, misogynistic squish-and-splatter flicks.