Entertainment
pharyngula | August 5, 2006You all remember that a program on the giant squid is on the Discovery Channel tonight, right? I'm tuned in right now.
pharyngula | August 5, 2006The plot careered around like a drunken sailor, and made very little sense. The macguffin was ridiculous. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley were bland mannequins who didn't do much. Many of the situations were absurd—the sword fight on the water wheel, the cannibals and the pirates dashing back and forth around the island, heck, just about every time someone pulled a sword, it was for a silly reason. The primary villain, Lord Cutler Beckett, was a conniving bureaucrat who didn't leave his office, and who was working to get a monopoly for the East India Company—did they get their plot driver…
pharyngula | August 4, 2006Tonight is the Morris premiere of that fabulous documentary on exotic marine invertebrates and nautical history, Pirates of the Caribbean. I will be there. I will be leaving early so I can get a good seat, front and center. I shall be singing sea shanties as I walk downtown to the theater. I will be rooting for the handsome fellow with the tentacular beard. I'm certain I will have a good time.
I'll probably also gripe heartily about the movie afterwards. We curmudgeons just aren't truly happy unless we've got things to grumble about.
pharyngula | August 3, 2006The SEED question of the week is this one:
What movie do you think does something admirable (though not necessarily accurate) regarding science? Bonus points for answering whether the chosen movie is any good generally....
Hmmm. I know I've posted a few movie reviews here. Let's see, what have I said…
The Day After Tomorrow
Van Helsing
X-Men 3
Underworld: Evolution
King Kong
Horror Express
After careful analysis of the Pharyngula cinematic history, I've come to a few conclusions. My taste in movies is indefensible, and doesn't seem to have much to do with science, so I'm not going to try…
pharyngula | July 20, 2006
(And now Jokermage's life is complete. Don't give up, though: seek out new challenges, and continue in your personal growth.)
pharyngula | July 11, 2006Whoa…it's an unaired pilot for Buffy The Vampire Slayer!
(via Brutal Women)
pharyngula | July 1, 2006Civilized Celts would send skillful bards to sing satires in great competitions. I applaud the idea of returning to such a literate tradition, but really…a skilled writer who knows something of meter and meaning vs. a clumsy, chattering hack who strings words together in lumpy, clattering arrhythmia? If this were a boxing match, it'd be like pitting Mohammed Ali in his prime against Steve Buscemi with a hangover. It's Bambi sans charm vs. Godzilla with a keyboard. It's the Philadelphia Philharmonic playing over a gurgling drainpipe. Who put together this embarrassing mismatch?
pharyngula | July 1, 2006I say, "Fie on you, Superman Returns." I'll probably go see it if it shows up here in Morris, but otherwise, Jesus in spandex has little appeal to me.
The only summer blockbuster I care about is the one with the pirates, and most importantly, the villains based on marine biology.
It takes a tortuously long time to get all the narrative plates spinning, but things fall into place once the real villain of the piece is unfurled. This is Davy Jones - of locker fame - and if that sounds like a cliché too far even for a camp pirate flick, Jones, played by Bill Nighy, and his crew are to this film…
pharyngula | June 30, 2006But it's science themed music, so that makes it a little bit OK. Easternblot.net links to music from This Week In Science, and in the comments, I discover the media empire of Doctor Steel. My kind of guy.
Oh, and since I haven't done a Friday Random Ten in a while, here's a science themed Friday Nonrandom Ten.
Evolution Rocks
Overman
Jocko Homo
DevoGreatest Hits
Dr. Worm
They Might Be Giants
Do The Evolution
Pearl Jam
Apeman
The Kinks
Monkey To Man
Elvis Costello
Monkey Gone To Heaven
Frank Black
Primitive Science
Kiril
Evolution is a Mystery
Motorhead
What We Need More…
pharyngula | June 25, 2006
After visiting the Body Worlds exhibit today, my short summary is that it was disappointing, but it wasn't all bad.
I'll get the complaints over first. Here's the thing: I like my biology wet. It's supposed to be vital and dynamic and messy and complicated, but it all ties together into a lovely integrated whole. A collection of plastinated cadavers is precisely the opposite of what I enjoy about the science: it's dead and static and distressingly dry. Seriously, when you've got a kidney on a table, it should look meaty and quiver a bit and lie there in a nice saucy pool of blood—it shouldn'…
pharyngula | June 23, 2006
I'm sure that everyone else who is a fan of the only program on television that features a hybrid arthropod-mollusc character will be pleased to hear that Zoidberg is coming back.
pharyngula | June 14, 2006Friday, at 3:15 ET, on NPR's Science Friday…it's Mooney vs. Bethell. Bethell doesn't stand a chance.
pharyngula | June 13, 2006Tomorrow night, Wednesday, I'll be glued to NBC: Leno is having both George Carlin and Ann Coulter on. One can only hope that the old hippie will have an opportunity to eviscerate the hateful, dishonest cretin.
Do check out that link above for another example of Carlin's routines on religion.
pharyngula | May 30, 2006Are you ready for the hot new game of the 2006 Christmas season, Left Behind: Eternal Forces?
Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and…
pharyngula | May 27, 2006The plot:
Imagine that people have invented a "cure" for mutants, which is housed in an isolated building, guarded by swarms of soldiers armed with guns that fire hypodermic needles loaded with the cure and bombs that send clouds of cure-shrapnel flying through the air.
Now imagine that you are the cunning mastermind of an army of mutants who want to destroy that cure. You personally have vast mental powers that let you move immense pieces of architecture around like they were legos. Your army has diverse powers: they can fly, they can teleport, they can move at lightning speed, they can…
pharyngula | May 26, 2006Gary Farber has a round-up of the reviews of X-Men: The Last Stand. My two boys and I are going to go see it tonight (yes, it's true—we have a first-run movie on opening day here in the little town of Morris). Skatje is going to be working the refreshment stand at the theater, so it's going to be a family event, sort of.
When I saw X2, I have to say that the freaking stupid nonsense about evolution in the opening and closing scenes drove me to distraction, and I'm afraid there will be more of the same here. It's a struggle, but these movies do have an entirely idiotic premise—mutations just…
pharyngula | May 18, 2006The hype machine for that drecky novel and movie, The DaVinci Code, is rather appalling: I simply don't see what the appeal is in a poorly written and unbelievable conspiracy theory about Jesus, and the protestations from Catholics are accomplishing nothing other than to fuel further interest in a very silly story. All I can imagine is that it's feeding the same hunger for religious fables that drove the sales of those ghastly Left Behind books. Anyway, the only good thing I've seen emerge from the schlockfest yet is Ian McKellen and his comments on the Today show, written up in US magazine…