movie

The climate change documentary A Sea Change will be shown at the Maple Grove Library, in the Western Twin Cities, by the Northwest Minneapolis Climate Action group, this Wednesday at 7:00 PM. See you there! Here is a trailer:
So I unexpectedly got a ticket to see the screening of Ridley Scott's Prometheus on Wednesday.  I think it's because I was nice to Fox and ran that competition for Tim Burton's 9 that one time where people won sweet ass picture encyclopaedias. That was fun.  Anyway.  Here's my review of Prometheus with a look at the science behind it.  There will be spoilers. So if you want to go into the movie knowing nothing, and yet insist on reading this blogpost first, you're going to have a bad time. Anyway, the science.  The basic premise of Prometheus is that humans discover a star map coded into the…
We haven't yet gotten to the point where we're comfortable leaving SteelyKid with a babysitter, so seeing the movie everybody's talking about took a while. Since she's off at Gammy's, though, we got a rare night to ourselves and went to the movies. My immediate reaction is that it's great to see a movie that's kind of smart and not based on anything dominating the box office. If this helps break us out of the endless cycle of re-makes and comic-book movies, I'll be as happy as anyone. This is an extremely well-done movie, with everything shot, acted, and choreographed very well. There was…
The Lord of the Rings trilogy came on TV again recently. My wife and I can't help but to watch this even though we have it on DVD. Anyway, I was thinking about the part where Gondor sends a signal to Rohan asking them for military aid. Since this was before the invention of email, they had to do it with a signal fire. Hopefully this clip won't be a spoiler for you, but this is from the movie. Actually, all of the clips available have embedding disabled. So this is just a picture of that clip. If you want to see it, go to the youtube version. One other spoiler: Sauron is really Frodo's…
tags: Validation, humor, funny, social commentary, film, movie, streaming video This sweet video is actually a short film that has won a lot of awards at film festivals. It's a bit long compared to the usual video embeds I share with you, but I think you'll enjoy this film (I certainly did). Starring TJ Thyne & Vicki Davis. Writer/Director/Composer - Kurt Kuenne. Winner - Best Narrative Short, Cleveland Int'l Film Festival, Winner - Jury Award, Gen Art Chicago Film Festival, Winner - Audience Award, Hawaii Int'l Film Festival, Winner - Best Short Comedy, Breckenridge Festival of Film,…
tags: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, film, movie, trailer, entertainment, streaming video Those of you who are Harry Potter fans will LOVE this! This is the second trailer from the penultimate installment of the Harry Potter films; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I, which was shown at the MTV movie awards 2010. HP7a will hit theaters on November 19th, 2010 [it's being released in Belgium on 17 November, so guess where I'll go to watch it on opening night?].
tags: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, film, movie, trailer, entertainment, streaming video Those of you who are Harry Potter fans will LOVE this! This is the first trailer from the penultimate installment of the Harry Potter films; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I, which will hit theaters on November 19th, 2010 [it's being released in Belgium on 17 November, so guess where I'll go to watch it on opening night?]. And it looks like the entire film will be offered in IMAX 3D and in 3D, too! Yeow!! I am exciiited and I'll bet you are too! And here's the first trailer,…
Of course I am talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger. After looking at how many bullets he carries in Commando, I remembered this scene (also from Commando) (warning: maybe some not great language and some killing. You have been warned) If you don't want to watch that clip, here is a shot (sorry for the quality). Clearly Arnold is strong, but there is more than strength involved here. Oh, don't bring your "he did it with wire stuff". I am not buying that. Also, I am talking about THE Arnold - he is real. I am not talking about the character in the movie (not real). Now for some physics…
Somewhere on the internet, I came across this Cracked.com article on movie myths about guns. The article wasn't too bad, but I really liked this video they included from Arnold's movie Commando. The myth for this particular clip was that guns never run out of ammo in the movies. Right away, I thought: I wonder how many bullets he shot? BRING IT ON. First, I am going to find the fire rate of Arnold's weapon. Oh, I know I could look it up on Wikipedia or something - but I am not going to do that. I am going to determine the fire rate from the clip. After capturing an audio segment where…
I was going through and tagging some old posts. While looking at a post attacking the movie Sunshine, I accidentally found something else on youtube. Gravity in Sunshine I could not find a clip online of the scene I want, so I made a cartoon. Basically, (oh - spoiler alert) some guys are trying to get from one spaceship to another by shooting out of the airlock and into the other. They fly through space and into the other airlock, close the door and emergency pump the air in. When the closed air lock fills with air, they all fall down. Since there was no online video version, I made a…
This is really random, but quick. I was channel surfing and saw the end of the movie: Fantastic 4 - Rise of the Silver Surfer. SPOILER: At the end someone really big explodes in space. There, that wasn't too much of a spoiler, was it? (unless you read the title) I know I am a loser. I initially thought: wow, that seemed pretty fast for that scale. I wonder if that exploding stuff was going faster than the speed of light. OH! I know, I will use Tracker to measure it. It is video that is set for analysis since it has the Earth in there - and I am pretty sure I know how big that is.…
tags: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, film, movie, trailer, entertainment, streaming video Do you have your tickets to the opening showing yet? Thanks to one of my readers, I DO! I DO! This is the newest trailer for the soon-to-be-released installment in the Harry Potter series; Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which will open on 17 July 2009. I have been waiting eagerly for one year for this film, ever since Warner Bros claimed it was going to be released last November .. but wasn't! [2:24]
So, I am mowing the lawn. What to do better than thinking while I mow? Sometimes mowing is no fun. It is just a type of maintenance. How much of what we do is maintenance? I first thought about this when I was thinking about getting a new car. Wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to get the brakes changed or the tires rotated? I hate taking the car to the shop to get these things done (yes, if I was motivated I could do them myself). Here are some other maintenance things: Mopping the floors Paying bills Keeping files organized on your computer Brushing your teeth How much of what…
tags: film, trailer, Everyone Poops, humor, satire, streaming video If you saw the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are, then you will recognize that this streaming video is a satire of that, providing us with a humorous look at the children's book, Everyone Poops [1:18]
From the recent documentary Ants: Nature's Secret Power, a glimpse of how researchers study ant behavior in the lab:
Another classy animation from Creature Comforts:
The local Society of Physics Students invited me to watch the movie Sunshine and then participate in a post movie discussion. There was one thing in the movie that really got me. Of course the movie made many of the common space mistakes. But this one didn't seem necessary. Let me outline this part of the movie (I guess I should say spoiler alert - although this isn't central to the main plot). Here are three frames of a comic I drew to reproduce the scene. After watching Sunshine, the astronauts try to go from one ship to another without space suits (well, one of them had a suit).…
tags: film, iMax, marine life, nature, movie trailer, streaming video Thanks to the wonder of the blogosphere, I have been invited to a screening of the new film, Under the Sea 3D on 4 February 2009 -- below the fold is an interesting interview with the filmmakers along with a teaser for you to enjoy .. By the way, do I have any NYC readers who would like to come along? It is at 7pm on 4 February and I am allowed one guest .. (creeps need not apply) [2:53] Tell me more!
I 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…
I finally saw the movie Iron Man. It was good. I feel that I am qualified to evaluate the movie. When I was in high school, I was totally into comic books. Mostly Spider-man, but I still have a significant collection of Iron Man comics. Ok, now you know I am not an Iron Man attacker. I will now attack the movie. Sorry, it's what I do (remember, I already said I liked it). There are several things I could comment on, in fact I recall some other blog talking about the physics of Iron Man. My attack will center on the scene where Tony Stark (Iron Man) escapes from captivity with his home…