film
gregladen | October 19, 2008Did you see Oliver Stone pop his head up in the audience on Saturday Night Live last nigh?
I have not yet seen W but I plan to. I know a lot of you find Oliver Stone annoying, but I want to make an argument that he is less annoying than you think.Oliver Stone
I think most people who are annoyed at Stone are annoyed because of one film: JFK (1991). This was an amalgam conspiracy film, bringing in every single known conspiracy idea regarding the tragic assassination of the President of the United States in 1963. But consider these two things; First, Stone has made quite a few films, and…
dmunger | October 1, 2008When Jim was 12 or 13, he seemed to want to watch almost every R-rated movie that came out. PG-13 movies were okay, and PG and G-rated movies were beneath his dignity. Was he simply interested in these movies because they were forbidden (as we contended), or was he somehow more drawn to the content of movies that happened to carry an R rating (as he insisted)?
To further complicate matters, there are separate ratings systems for TV, movies, video games, music, and even web sites. With such an array of ratings systems, are parents actually aware of what each rating means?
There's been…
dmunger | September 15, 2008It's now taken as a given that the musical score of a movie can have huge influence on our perception of the movie. From the pulsating terror achieved in films like Psycho and Jaws, to the triumphant victories in Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean, it's hard to think about a great film without also being influenced by that film's score. Music is such an important aspect of film that when a group of students was asked to rate the emotions evoked by music in six film excerpts, only a third of them noticed that all the film clips had no music. This was on a multiple choice test, where the…
grrlscientist | September 12, 2008tags: Mackenna's Gold, Jose Feliciano, music, film, movies, streaming video
Really amazing footage and wonderful music by José Feliciano about turkey vultures, from the movie, Mackenna's Gold -- is this a film I must see? You tell me! [5:24]
"There's an old story.
The way the Apaches tell it...
...a man was riding in the desert
and came across a vulture...
...the kind they call turkey buzzards
in Arizona, sittin' on a rock.
"Hey", the man says, "how come you
old turkey buzzard's sittin' here?
"I saw you flying over Hadleyberg,
and I didn't want to meet up with you...
"...so I turned around…
gregladen | July 22, 2008This just in:
After a ragingly great world premiere of "Sizzle: A global warming comedy," at the Outfest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival last Saturday night, Randy Olson will appear on NPR for the second time in less than a week. This time on the Boston-based show, "Here and Now," as he talks further about the film in preparation for this Saturday night's East Coast Premiere at the Woods Hole Film Festival.
[Above is] photo from Saturday night of the cast and crew after the screening. From left: Randy Olson, Ifeanyi Njoku, Brian Clark, Alex Thomas, Muffy Moose Olson, Paul Andreson (cameraman),…
gregladen | July 16, 2008... Or is it?
I just wrote an entire blog post about Sizzle, but accidentally posted it as a comment instead here. I'm actually pointing you to the comment before mine, which in turn inspired mine. Have a look.
aardvarchaeology | July 14, 2008I know what a documentary film is. I know what fiction is. And I know what a mockumentary is: a fictional documentary. Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy attempts to combine these approaches within the framework of comedic fiction, and it left me really confused.
Director and narrator Randy Olson exists, I know that. But what about the scientists he interviews? Are all of them real? Some of them? None? There certainly are a few pretty outlandish characters there. Yet the only people in the movie I could be entirely sure must be played by actors were the in-movie camera man and sound guy, because…
aardvarchaeology | July 3, 2008Journey to 10,000 BC is a new made-for-TV documentary about Clovis-era North American archaeology and palaeontology (not to be confused with Roland Emmerich's baroque fantasy feature 10,000 BC). The format of the film is conventional: a voiceover intercut with clips from interviews with scholars. The academics acquit themselves well and get a lot of interesting information across in the brief soundbites allotted them. This is the film's main strength. The voiceover (written by David Padrusch and Ian Stoker-Long) isn't too bad either: there are a few sensationalistic bloopers and endorsements…
gregladen | June 11, 2008This just in:
Perhaps he was inspired by the turnout for Young People Fucking, or maybe he misses all that media attention he got after taking credit for getting C-10 through the House with nary a peep over the controversial changes to the film tax rebate. Whatever the reason, Reverend Charles McVety is headed back to the capital to co-host a private screening of a very different kind of film: Expelled: The Movie, the controversial anti-Darwin documentary that purports to expose a sinister anti-creationism bias within the mainstream scientific community.
The details are HERE.
gregladen | June 10, 2008The film we've all been waiting for ... Randy Olson (of Flock of Dodos fame) has produced a new film called Sizzle. In the film Olson uses the approach he used in Dodos to address the global warming issue. I have not seen the film but hope to review it soon.
Mean time, here's the press release in full:
SILLY AND SERIOUS PREMIERES:
"SIZZLE: A GLOBAL WARMING COMEDY" OPENS AT OUTFEST AND WOODS HOLE FILM FESTIVALS IN JULY
Hollywood, Ca. (June 9, 2008) - The new feature film from scientist-turned-filmmaker Dr. Randy Olson ("Flock of Dodos: the evolution-intelligent design circus," Tribeca 2006…
gregladen | May 22, 2008Update on the Ono Law Suit ...
As you most certainly know, Yoko Ono and her two sons have sued the producers of Expelled! for their use without permission of the song Imagine by John Lennon.
Well, it appears as though a ruling from the court is imminent. AP is lubing the shoots with a retrospective summary of the suit.
Ono is not asking that the film be pulled, but rather, that the song she controls the rights to not be used.
At a hearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan this week, the filmmakers' lawyer, Anthony T. Falzone, said that if the judge granted Ono's request for an…
gregladen | April 29, 2008
Second commandment: Try not to be a moron.
(FYI: observed instances of speciation)
Hat Tip: TUIBG and Julia
gregladen | April 27, 2008With all this talk about Expelled!, the creationist movie, I thought it was about time to resurrect the review I wrote many moons ago of Flock of Dodos by Randy Olson, along with some updated information.
Flock of Dodos is a much better film than Expelled!, and explores the same issue, with somewhat different conclusions. So, for instance, if you are going to use one of them in a school or church to explain the ID/Evolution controversy, I recommend Flock.
(That's a picture of Randy with some big birds at the Tribeca Film Festival.) Plus, since its been out a bit longer, Flock of Dodos is…
gregladen | April 23, 2008Despite the fact that the producers of Expelled! have the most nefarious of motives in mind, and that we can expect more from them (we are waiting for the other shoe to drop), it is interesting to note how many conversations this documentary about Intelligent Design Creationism has sparked. Ultimately, the intended purpose of Expelled! is to silence real scientists and set back scientific research that is on the verge of filling one of the most important "gaps" in which the Christian God of the theistic evolutionist currently lives. In the long run, conversations that arise from movies like…
gregladen | April 23, 2008Evolving in Kansas provides a lie-fighting fact revealing review of Expelled!'s showing in Iowa.
The film debuted at the Varsity Theater in Ames, Iowa on Friday night (April 18). Ames is important because it is the home of Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, the pro-ID astronomer, who lost his tenure bid at Iowa State. He contends that it was purely because of his Intelligent Design work, while his opponents contend that ID either was not a factor or it was not the most important factor.
In any case, the headline of the Discovery Institute reads "Expelled in Iowa gives Standing Ovation to Persecuted…
gregladen | April 22, 2008Now that Expelled! No Intelligence Allowed, the movie, exists, we wait not so quietly for the other shoe to drop. I'll tell you in a moment what that other shoe is going to look like and where it is going to drop. First I want to make a couple of topically linked but otherwise discombobulated comments.
First, I want to express my heartfelt warm fuzzies for all those of you who have come out to tell me "Yes, Greg, you are an asshole, but that's OK. In fact, it's what we love about you" and shit. Appreciate it.
Second, you did notice that the take for Expelled! fell short of the expected…
aardvarchaeology | April 22, 2008There was a time, around the age of twenty, when I saw some pretty weird movies. First I lived a short bike ride from the Swedish Film Institute, where I caught Kenneth Anger and Luis Buñuel (neither of whom I liked much -- I walked out on Anger's shorts). Then I moved to a place with a TV set just as Swedish commercial television took off. The stations didn't have much money yet and would broadcast the weirdest, cheapest feature films on weekend afternoons. Two stuck in my mind: one a low-budget Italian Conan rip-off whose title eludes me, the other an American picture from 1989 named…
aardvarchaeology | April 17, 2008
I'm spending tomorrow in a cultic field with Per Vikstrand and a metal detector. So I reckon it were best if we all had a look at the druggiest bit in all of Monty Python first.
gregladen | April 16, 2008At this moment (noonish central time, April 16th) if you type "Expelled" into a google search, the results in order are:
1: The expelled movie site.
2: Another page on the expelled movie dite
3: The wikipedia entry for Expelled
4: A blog by PZ Myers at Pharyngula for when he got expelled from Expelled
5: The National Center for Science Education site Expelled Exposed.