movies
oracknows | May 9, 2007Since today seems to be World War II history day on the old blog, I just can't resist posting this little gem for geeks:
A full resolution version can be found here.
Of course, the nitpicker geek in me can't help but point out that, not only is the Swastika on the left arm of the robot reversed, but I'm really quite sure that the Nazis didn't have giant robots to use to attack U.S. Naval bases in the Pacific.
OK, OK, back to medicine tomorrow.
oracknows | April 25, 2007Ever wonder what happened to Roger Ebert, who has been absent from the balcony in his Ebert & Roeper Show for quite some time battling cancer?
So did I. I always liked his style and mostly agreed with his movie reviews, but since moving away from Chicago I haven't heard much or watched the show as much, given that it never seems to be on when I'm around to watch TV. Well, wonder no more:
My Ninth Annual Overlooked Film Festival opens Wednesday night at the University of Illinois at Urbana, and Chaz and I will be in attendance.
This year I won't be speaking, however, as I await another…
oracknows | March 31, 2007Why is it that the concepts of freedom of religion and freedom of speech seem so hard for some people to understand? Witness a truly idiotic attempt to prevent someone from appearing on TV simply because he is a Scientologist:
March 31, 2007 -- - A German official is demanding that John Travolta be uninvited from a guest appearance on a popular German television show tonight because he's a Scientologist, but show officials insist he will appear as scheduled.
Guenther Oettinger, the state governor of Baden-Wuerttemberg, wants Travolta off "Wanna Bet?" a popular show in Germany seen by an…
oracknows | February 25, 2007Taking a cue from Abel, I like the look of this:
This year marks a first. Usually, my wife and I have managed to see at least a couple of the nominees; in years past, when we were dating and after we first got married, sometimes we'd have seen most of the nominated films by the time the Oscars rolled around. Then our moviegoing decreased steadily over the years. Now, it can often be months between excursions to the movies. In any case, this year, of all the movies nominated for Best Picture, I've seen only one: Little Miss Sunshine. It was a hilarious movie (Alan Arkin stole the film), but I…
purepedantry | February 20, 2007Hi everyone, and welcome to Grand Rounds, vol. 3 no. 22.
The Oscars are this Sunday, and -- since I know we all look forward to this yearly 4-hour marathon of farcical self-absorption -- this edition of Grand Rounds will be themed according to movies nominated for awards this year.
However, I have been informed that a fair number of GR's readers are not from the US and are unfamiliar with our peculiar brand of navel gazing. Thus, let me summarize what happens during the Academy Awards:
-- The American public (and a fair number of other people) will participate in the World Cup of…
purepedantry | February 19, 2007I saw Ghost Rider last night, and I have a brief review:
In this movie, there are many farcical things: demons, irrational property damage from physics-flouting motorcycles, Nicholas Cage's acting, etc. However, the most flagrant absurdity -- the most laughably impossible event -- is when Nicholas Cage's character turns down a sexually willing Eva Mendes and unceremoniously shows her the door.
In the physical universe that we presently inhabit there is no conceivable way that a heterosexual male would behave in that manner. It is practically a law of nature.
Frankly, it put a pall over…
sporte | January 21, 2007I read about this in Science and immediately had to check it out. Instant gratification on the internet is such a wonderful thing!
The Ed Kravitz lab has made movies of fights and even put them on the web for your viewing pleasure.
You can see the following fly fights that might suit your fancy:
Fighting flies
Male Drosophila melanogaster aggression (with music)
Female Drosophila melanogaster aggression page
Or if you prefer battling sea life, you can watch the lobsters duke it out. Now I know why the lobsters in the grocery store tank always have rubber bands around their claws.…
purepedantry | December 5, 2006In order to raise money for schools in India, Christie's auctioned one of the black dresses that Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany's:
The iconic black dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film "Breakfast at Tiffany's" sold for 410,000 pounds ($800,000) on Tuesday, around seven times its pre-sale estimate.
Including the premium paid to auctioneers Christie's, the total cost for the sleeveless, floor-length Givenchy cocktail gown rose to 467,200 pounds ($920,000).
The sale room at Christie's broke into applause at the end of a long and tense session when it was finally bought by…
oracknows | November 11, 2006It sounds like casting genius, even if it's only a small role:
LAS VEGAS, Nov. 6, 2006 -- Hide the Bats! Christopher Walken has agreed to play the ultimate bad-boy rocker -- Ozzy Osbourne..
Motley Crue lead singer Vince Neil told ABC News Radio in an exclusive interview that the 63-year-old Oscar-winning actor will make a cameo appearance as Osbourne in "The Dirt," a movie based on the band's controversial 2001 autobiography.
"How funny is that going to be," Neil told ABC's Al Mancini at the Opening of Vince Neil Ink, the singer's new tattoo parlor in Las Vegas.
Walken's press representatives…
oracknows | November 10, 2006I saw the trailer for Spiderman 3 last night. The comic geek in me is starting to get excited, because the movie looks like it's going to be really, really good, perhaps the best Spider-Man movie so far. It looks as though Venom, the Sandman, and Harry Osbourne, Jr. taking up where his dad (the Green Goblin) left off will all be making an appearance. In case you missed it:
I can't wait until May 4.
sporte | November 7, 2006BioMed Central has gone beyond conventional scientific publishing and started including movie supplements to scientific papers. I saw this one in my e-mail box and couldn't resist.
After all, if you don't have access to a microscope, equipped with a digital video camera, how are you supposed to see these sorts of things?
I took a look at the article from Neural Development, from Zolessi, et. al. comparing the development of retinal ganglion cells in vitro and in vivo. In the movie, linked below, the first cell looks a bit like a child playing "Pin the tail on the Donkey." He/She (the…
purepedantry | November 2, 2006I'm excited about Borat. Are you excited? I'm excited.
Anyway for those of you who haven't seen them, here are the two trailers for it on YouTube:
And here is a link to the Borat MySpace page which also totally cracks me up:
Age - for 23 harvests I have had hair on pubis.
Zodiac Sign - the Potato
Religion: I follow the Hawk
Sexual Orientation: I am not loolee loolee
Body Type: 2 arms, 2 legs, 112 teeth and chram thick like tube of Pringles
Family - I single - my wife is dead (I did not kill her).
I have 3 sons [Bilak [12], Biram [12], Hooeylewis [13]] and I have 17 grandchildrens.…
scientificactivist | August 20, 2006I don't make it to the movies too often in the UK. To start with, they're prohibitively expensive, and I'm often seeing them months after my friends back home. When you then consider the fact that the popcorn here tastes like salty styrofoam (it's called butter, people! Look into it!), there really isn't much of a draw.
However, after completing my transfer viva Thursday, I needed to kick back this weekend. Since you can only go to the pub so many times before people start to call you an alcoholic (people back home, at least), I joined some friends at the movies. On Friday we saw Nacho…
purepedantry | July 14, 2006So back in college, Kevin Smith came to talk to us. It has to be one of the funniest things I have ever seen. He came with no prepared material and spoke expositorily for about 4 hours, just telling stories. All of his stories were absolutely hilarious, and he is just a really personable guy. He was very unpretentious for someone who has become as famous as he has. Anyway, about a year later, a DVD was released that has footage of him doing this all over the nation.
On the DVD, he tells the story of how he was asked to write a new Superman movie, and his interactions with the producer…
purepedantry | July 13, 2006As I have promised to do some sort of regular Friday movie review here goes. Incidentally, I don't know if this will be entirely regular -- sometimes I don't see movies. So we will see how it goes.
Pirates of the Caribbean passed swimmingly the low expectations test: everyone thought with good reason that a movie inspired by a Disney ride would suck; therefore, when it did not suck, people were substantially impressed. Similarly, Johnny Depp exposes one to the awesome spectacle of what would happen if someone so addled by decades of drug use that reality often eludes them were to engage…
purepedantry | July 6, 2006What does a scanner see? Into the head? Into the heart? Does it see into me? Clearly? Or darkly?
Think about it this way. Everything that you have ever been or ever will be, everything you have loved, every preference, every joy, every sweet or sordid memory is contained in a squishy mass of about 1.5 kg. That squishy mass is so fragile that whiplash can mortally wound it and so demanding that you must eat constantly to feed it. The slightest change in temperature or decrease in oxygen will leave it useless.
True, it is surrounded by a skull -- which from personal experience in anatomy…
purepedantry | June 30, 2006Who Killed the Electric Car? opened this evening. As Seed has a nice interview with the filmmaker, Chris Paine, I thought I would see it and write of a review.
(Incidentally, I saw this film tonight in a theater of a whopping 27 people in downtown Manhattan. Considering that this is Manhattan, and it is opening night I wouldn't be holding out for An Inconvenient Truth level turnout over the next couple weeks.)
(I don't have time to write a coherent essay on the film, so my issues with it are dealt with below in more or less random order.)
First, I disagree with this movie's title. I guess…
purepedantry | June 28, 2006Warning SPOILERS below the fold!
So I saw -- as is my habit -- a geeky comic book movie on the opening show last night: Superman Returns.
On the whole I would give it two thumbs up. Whereas most comic book movies are not shining examples of good writing, the dialogue managed to walk the fine line between intended and unintended corniness. At least in my opinion, the mark of powerful writing in a science fiction movie is not that the characters avoid saying ridiculous things but rather that when they do you know they actually planned it.
This is particularly relevant in this case because…
sporte | June 20, 2006I recently completed a long trip out-of-town, giving a presentation at a Bio-Link conference in Berkeley, and teaching a couple of bioinformatics classes at the University of Texas, through the National Science Foundation's Chautauqua program.
The Human Subjects Protection Course
Before I left town, I had to take a class on how to treat human subjects. It seems strange, in some ways, to be doing this now, several years after completing graduate school, but my experimental subjects have generally been plants, protozoans, and bacteria; with a few rabbits, rats, and mice thrown in as antibody…
purepedantry | June 18, 2006There are Nerd Gods in the movie Word Play. I am not talking about rock gods or leaders of men or even Adonises of the human form. I am talking about Nerd Gods. Nerds of such startling nerditry that when they go up on stage women in thick glasses throw their underwired bras at them.
Would you like to be a Nerd God? Well, then you have to see the movie Word Play.
I am not kidding when I tell you that this is perhaps the funniest movie that I have seen in several years.
Partially, it is the variety of characters. For example, we learn that Daniel Okrent, former New York Times Ombudsman,…