movies
oracknows | January 16, 2009I hate to finish up the week on a bit of a downer, but unfortunately this week I really wasn't in the mood to do justice to Your Friday Dose of Woo, even though I have at least a couple of potential targets--I mean subjects--to cover for my (hopefully) fun little Friday exercise. I was gearing up to try anyway, when I saw something in my e-mail that saddened me greatly. (More on that in a moment.) I even thought of trying to pull off a post on a peer-reviewed article, even though it was pretty late when I got home. However, due to the careful reading and examination of data required, those…
rallain | January 5, 2009I finally saw the movie WALL-E. Good flick, I liked it. There was, however, one part I must comment on. You know I can't help myself. I feel like the shark Bruce in Finding Nemo. I try not to attack, but there is a tiny drop of blood in the water. Here is the scene that I want to talk about:
I guess I should give a spoiler alert. Although, I will not talk about the plot of the movie.
In this scene, WALL-E is hitching a ride on this space craft. The space craft is entering a hanger deck of a space station. While the hanger door is still open, WALL-E is clearly hanging on so that he…
oracknows | January 5, 2009Over the last year and a half, Jenny McCarthy has been, unfortunately, a fairly frequent topic of this blog. There is, of course, a reason for this. Ever since she published her first book on autism back in the summer of 2007, she has become the public face of the antivaccine movement and autism quackery. Indeed, Generation Rescue, that reliable bastion of antiscientific antivaccine pseudoscience and autism quackery, has been--shall we say?--rebranded as "Jenny McCarthy's Autism Organization." In the process, she has demonstrated a level of burning stupid that defies description, a stupidity…
oracknows | December 22, 2008Why does anyone listen to actors when they pontificate about health and medical issues?
Think about it. What is it that actors do? They read lines given to them. True, some have a talent that goes beyond that; they can actually write or direct. But few of them have any more abilities when it comes to science than the average populace. Indeed, arguably, they have less knowledge of science than average. Witness, for instance, Jenny McCarthy and her crusade against vaccines. Yes, I realize that she claims not to be "antivaccine," but her actions and words say otherwise. She's also managed to…
mikethemadbiologist | December 4, 2008When I read that film critic Roger Ebert was going back to work despite a bout with cancer, I wrote about my hope that he would turn his sights on the creationist screed Expelled.
Many people may not know that he has been a long time, vocal opponent of the idiocy that is creationism. So I was thrilled to see his recent evisceration review of Expelled:
Intelligent Design "scientists" in "Expelled" are offended by being called ignorant. When Stein points out that "Catholics and mainstream Protestant groups" have no problem with the theory of Evolution, he is informed by an ID advocate, "…
laelaps | November 22, 2008During the opening act of the propaganda film Expelled, Cornell historian of science Will Provine summed up intelligent design as "utterly boring." The same could be said of Expelled, a film steeped in the controversy over the brand of creationism known as intelligent design. An hour and a half long experiment in "Gish Gallop," Expelled is a film that ultimately gets so frustrated by the incoherence of leading ID advocates that it ultimately collapses in upon itself and admits that, yes, this really is all about finding the Judeo-Christian god in nature.
The film seems to have been slapped-…
oracknows | November 19, 2008It looks as though the Jenny McCarthy woo factor has claimed two more celebrity victims' brains. If a recently viewed press release is any indication, it appears that Anthony Edwards and Dustin Hoffman are getting into the autism quackery business:
Internet Marketing Company joins Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Edwards and others in fight to help children with Autism.
GREENSBORO, N.C. (June 4, 2008) -- Market America announced today that it is in the development and testing stages of a new line of nutraceutical products that will support the health of children with Autism…
laelaps | November 19, 2008Earlier this year, intelligent design advocates were trumpeting the forthcoming "fall of Darwinism" with the release of the propaganda film Expelled. The film stirred up some controversy, had a modest (at best) showing, and generally preached to the choir, but it didn't seem to have as momentous a reception as the filmmakers were hoping for.
I was curious about what the entire film was like, but I wasn't about to support the people behind it by seeing it in theaters or purchasing a DVD. Last week, however, I noticed that Netflix has added Expelled to a list of movies subscribers can watch for…
oracknows | November 13, 2008
The things I do for my readers.
I'm referring to a movie entitled The Beautiful Truth, links to whose website and trailers several of you have e-mailed to me over the last couple of weeks. Maybe it's because the movie is only showing in New York and Los Angeles and hasn't made it out of the media enclaves of those cities out to the rest of us in flyover country, or maybe its release is so limited that I just hadn't heard of it. Certainly that appears to be the case, as the schedule shown at the website lists it as beginning an engagement in New York tomorrow and running through November 20…
sporte | November 9, 2008It was a wet and rainy day yesterday, and we have a dissecting microscope, so I decided to see if I could find some tardigrades.
Tardigrade photo by nebarnix
Reposted from Nov. 2006
I went outside and scraped a bit of moss and some lichens off of our deck. Then I put the lichens and moss in a dish. We don't have distilled water in our house, so I added a bit of cool some tap water to the dish. I squeezed the moss and lichens in the water. Then I took a pipette and transferred a bit of the stuff in the water to a plastic petri dish and looked for tardigrades.
Sure enough, I saw one…
pontiff | November 6, 2008I wrote a paper with David DiVincenzo once. Now he is in the title of a YouTube video. Some things you can never predict.
Part of me wants to say very loudly OMG. The other part of me watched the full six episodes.
Parts 2-6 below the fold. Hat tip Aggie.
Part II:
Part III:
Part IV:
Part V:
Part VI:
laelaps | October 16, 2008I'm going to be working on editing my book for most of the day today, but with Halloween coming up I thought I would put up an open thread about monster movies. For me, it has always been a tradition to wait until it gets dark, pop some popcorn, and put on a favorite creature feature around this time of year. Here are some of my favorites (post yours in the comments or on your blog and link back);
Alligator (1980)
My all-time favorite, and the infamous pool scene was enough to make me double-check before going into the deep end as a kid.
Prophecy (1979)
This movie tried to do something…
sporte | October 10, 2008Sometimes words fail me. Luckily, we have videos.
Many of you have probably read about Roger Tsien receiving the Nobel Prize this work for his work with the green fluorescent protein (GFP), but I bet some of you are wondering, why a jellyfish protein is worth a Noble Prize.
I think one of the best places to see why GFP is important, and also to see what some scientists do during the day, is JOVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments.
The wonderful video, that's shown in this image, describes a new method for investigating Parkinson's disease. This is the kind of biological work that we…
oracknows | October 1, 2008Readers may be wondering why I haven't written about Jenny McCarthy's latest brain dead outburst against Amanda Peet. (Actually, brain dead is too kind a description of it, given that Jenny's retort in essence boils down to her having an "angry mob" on her side making Amanda "completely wrong.") It's because I decided to try to resist for once in my life. And I was doing really good at it, too, even though several readers sent me links to various stories about Jenny McCarthy's outburst. Still, I resisted. Even after antivaccinationist financier J. B. Handley wrote a post demanding of Amanda…
laelaps | August 18, 2008
I haven't had much time to sit down and watch any movies lately, but this past weekend I did make a little time to watch at least some of the Jurassic Park films. There's a lot I could complain about in each installment, but I have to admit that it's nice to just sit down and watch what almost look like real-life dinosaurs running around on screen. Indeed, the films have had an immense impact on popular culture and ushered in a new wave of dinomania, and 15 years after the release of the first film (and 7 years since the last installment) paleontologists are still fielding questions inspired…
grrlscientist | August 10, 2008tags: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, movie posters, poster teasers
Well, not many people have responded to my Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie poster poll, so I am asking you once again, whichy poster do you like best? I've linked to each of the posters from the poll itself so you can look at them all and decide which you want to vote for, too.
The poll is reposted below the fold for your convenience.
Which Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince poster is your favorite?
Poster 1
Poster 2
Poster 3
Poster 4
Poster 5
Poster 6
Poster 7
Poster 8
Poster 9…
purepedantry | July 21, 2008I suspect that many of you got a chance to see The Dark Knight movie this weekend.
Just as an aside, I will say that I thought that the movie was sweet. Definitely the best Batman movie, maybe one of the best superhero movies ever made. Heath Ledger is terrifyingly good throughout. Aaron Eckhart and Christian Bale give excellent performances as well, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is a hell of lot better than Katie Holmes.
Anyway, there is a scene in the movie that got me thinking about game theory, and that is what I want to talk about. Beware, if you haven't seen the film, this discussion…
laelaps | July 20, 2008
If I got paid to do reviews of books, movies, websites, and products I definitely could turn it into a full-time job. Almost every day something turns up in my inbox telling me about a new website or product that someone wants me to take a look at and plug here. I end up deleting most of them (sometimes wondering why some of these people think I'm fit to review websites about herbal remedies and other such things), but a few are interesting enough that I do want to take a look. Some things I know I'm going to like before I even receive the materials, others I end up being pleasantly…
laelaps | July 20, 2008
I didn't quite know what to expect when I entered the theater to see The Dark Knight last evening, I just knew it was going to be good.* I was absolutely blown away. This isn't the sort of film where you walk out saying "It was good for a comic book movie." It is a great movie, period, something that changes what a comic-based mythology can be with careful planning (even if the Joker's love of chaos seeps into the mix). Unlike so many other films there's not the sense of obligation to hardcore comic book fans that results in endless streams of in-jokes, cameos, and crossovers; much like it's…