Pop Culture
drorzel | August 27, 2006This year's Hugo Awards (either the Oscars of the Golden Globes of the science fiction/ fantasy field, depending on who you ask) were announced last night at the Worldcon in LA. Pleasant surprises abound:
1) Spin by Robert Charles Wilson won the Best Novel Hugo. As I've said before, I think it was far and away the best book in the field, but I didn't think it would win. They've made a lot of bad calls in recent years, but this one, I like.
2) The Best Professional Editor Hugo goes to David Hartwell. This is nice to see not just because David is a nice guy, and does good work, but because…
stcynic | August 25, 2006Okay, I know most of my readers aren't gonna care at all about this, but as an inveterate watcher of pop culture disasters, something has to be said about the performance of Kevin Federline on the Teen Choice awards (yes, I actually wrote myself a note to turn it on for the last 10 minutes - even interrupting a poker game - so I wouldn't miss this trainwreck as it happened). Anyone who really watches pop culture knew the moment that Britney Spears married Federline that this was going to be a long series of disasters with an inevitable bad ending. He's Tom Arnold 2.0, a talentless hack…
evolgen | August 18, 2006The Dinos hit the proverbial nail on the proverbial head with this proverbial strip:
evolgen | August 17, 2006Is it possible to have a news item about college football, with people whose names remind you of musical legends, washed up rockers, and supporting actors in a Peter North movie? Could this be the perfect intersection of sports, pop culture, and dirty jokes? This story reads like a casting call for a John Holmes movie, not a preseason roster move by a college football coach. Houston Nutt (which is a funny name on its own), the head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks, has named his starting quarterback for the first game of the season. He selected Robert Johnson (no one's sure if the Devil will…
drorzel | August 13, 2006Well, it's as good a guess at a collective noun for "kerfuffle" as any other...
There have been three moderately heated bloggy controversies that I've been following over the past week, that I haven't commented on. Mostly because I don't really have that much to add to any of the arguments, or at least, not enough to merit a blog post.
I do want to note their existence, though, and maybe by combining them together, it won't feel so much like a pointless fluff post. So if you're dying to know my opinions on the crimes of fanfic, Oliver Stone's casting decisions, or Hooters, click on through to…
drorzel | August 9, 2006Technorati reveals a bunch of responses to my weekend post on genre fiction, and I wanted to at least note a few of them here.
Over at Brad DeLong's, he highlights my comments about story pacing, which sparked some interesting comments. A number of people object that books and movies are too long these days, compared to the past. While there's no denying that many books have swelled, I think that's sort of orthogonal to the sort of pace I was talking about-- you may or may not think that the action advances the plot quickly enough, but there's more happening at any given moment in most modern…
drorzel | August 6, 2006Over at Making Light, the Nielsen Haydens stumbled upon a video of the Hurra Torpedo version of the Bonnie Tyler/ Jim Steinman kitsch masterpiece "Total Eclipse of the Heart," which absolutely boggles the mind. Of course, the weird thing is that their re-invention isn't actually any weirder than the original video, which Teresa also attempts to explain. All this together inspired Matt McIrvin to one of the best post titles ever.
But the really fascinating thing about this is the "explore more videos" feature on YouTube. From the original video, you can find links to several live versions of…
drorzel | August 5, 2006Yesterday saw the posting (or at least the arrival on my RSS reader) of two different discussions of the current state of genre fiction. I have issues with both discussions, but reading them together makes for an interesting effect.
First, there's Charlie Stross complaining about the state of SF, and once again lamenting the lack of... something in the SF vein. I'm not entirely clear what it is that he would like to see, other than that it isn't alternate history or werewolf porn-- more on this in a bit. There are various responses and duelling anecdotes in the comments. Over at the Whatever…
evolgen | August 4, 2006I'm going to agree with Tara, Evil Monkey, Steinn v2.0, and Chad on this week's Ask a Science Blogger:
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.
The answer: Real Genius, starring a young Val Kilmer (pre Top Gun) as the hotshot undergrad (Chris Knight) and the annoying EPA agent from Ghostbusters as his slimy advisor. Plus, it's got Uncle Rico as the guy that lives in Knight's closet and Stacey Peralta as, well, I'm not quite sure, but he's listed on the first…
drorzel | August 4, 2006Over the last few months, Kate and I have fallen into a Friday evening routine involving the watching of Japanese cartoons. We started out getting discs of Fullmetal Alchemist from Netflix, and then taping the later episodes off the Cartoon Network, and then Samurai Champloo from Netflix, and most recently finished Vision of Escaflowne (a combination of discs loaned to us by Yoon Ha Lee, and Netflix). Somewhere in there, we also watched Cowboy Bebop and Hellsing, which were loaned to me by a student, but those weren't really Kate's sort of thing.
Last week, we watched the first disc of…
drorzel | August 2, 2006Over at Cocktail Party Physics, Jennifer Ouellette offers dating advice for the geek set. Mostly, this reminds me again how happy I am to be married, and not worrying about this stuff any more, but her advice seems reasonably sound, save for one point:
There's nothing sexier than a man who's confident and comfortable in his own skin, and therefore isn't afraid to show a little affection and emotion at opportune moments. To paraphrase a famous line in the classic film, Say Anything: don't be a Guy. The world is full of Guys. Be a Man. Come to think of it, rent Say Anything for your date, and…
drorzel | July 31, 2006There's a comment to the most recent Open Thread at Making Light asking why there isn't more handicapping of the Hugo Awards. The commenter, Kathryn from Sunnyvale, makes reference to a comment on John Scalzi's "Please Vote" thread, that suggested there was a clear favorite in the balloting:
There is a certain book on the short list that had more preorders than the rest of the books had sales combined -- by a factor of 10, most like.
This certain book's author has a fan community that meets up at each Worldcon and throws the biggest and best parties. This year, over 100 members are expected,…
drorzel | July 27, 2006Via Dave Sez, Ed at the Sports Frog wants a divorce from ESPN:
I have carefully thought this through and I believe a divorce is our only resolution. I have been loyal and faithful to you and you have shit on me, cheated, lied, took 5 months to send me a check and you won't let me see some of my friends anymore.
You took away David Aldridge and foisted Screaming A on me. From a thoughtful, insightful, coherent reporter to a screaming clown who is nothing less than a thug wannabe.
[...] SportsCenter went from a highlight show to an hour of self-promotion of the preening anchors. Trey Wingo now…
evolgen | July 23, 2006Have you ever wondered what's happened to the line between church and state? Are you curious as to whether the line has been blurred or erased altogether? Clay at DeadlyHippos investigates the issue by visiting a megachurch in Tennessee. The church is run by Maury Davis, a man convicted of first degree murder who subsequently found God-uh and was saved-ah. Pastor Davis is also the man behind the DVD Islam: An Evil Religion (A four part series). Oh the sweet, sweet irony. In between pop songs, unraveling of enormous American flags, and fireworks displays, Davis cheers the virtues of…
stcynic | July 22, 2006I've been eagerly awaiting the release of Clerks 2, and it finally came this weekend. I haven't seen it yet, but I will. This is one of the rare movies that actually will get me to go to the theater to see it. I'm a huge Kevin Smith fan. And seeing this review from wingnut Debbie Schlussel just makes me want to see it even more:
The film is garbage. It's depraved, disgusting, and demented--all of which reflect the same on its writer/director, the now-worshipped idol of the slacker set, Smith. The movie is a celluloid monument to the continuing decline of America--and civilization in general.…
purepedantry | July 21, 2006Whereas Merriam-Webster has been adding words to the dictionary like unibrow and drama queen, Time Out New York has some more interesting words. Check out definitions for underboob, aireoke, etc.
Hat-tip: Gawker.
purepedantry | July 20, 2006Kate Hudson sues magazine for pictures that made her look too skinny:
Actress Kate Hudson accepted libel damages on Thursday from a magazine that printed a photo making her look too skinny, alongside an article that said her movie star mother Goldie Hawn wanted her to eat more.
Hudson had sued the UK Enquirer magazine over the article which appeared last October under the headline "Goldie Tells Kate: Eat Something!"
Her lawyer, Simon Smith, told Britain's High Court the story and pictures implied Hudson had "recklessly and foolishly endangered her health by deliberately starving herself."
One…
drorzel | July 18, 2006The article about physicists in movies cited previously had one other thing worth commenting on: the fictional portrayal of the practice of science:
All these films illustrate a fundamental pattern for movie science. Rarely is the central scientific concept utterly incorrect, but filmmakers are obviously more interested in creating entertaining stories that sell tickets than in presenting a lesson in elementary physics. They also know that scenes of scientists at a lab bench do not generally make for gripping movie moments. Indeed, the need for drama often pushes the basic scientific idea to…
stcynic | July 14, 2006I just got Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime 2, the long-awaited followup to their brilliant 1988 concept album of the same name. This will be a very short review: this album is so appallingly bad that after it finished I had to put on the original Operation Mindcrime to remind myself of how good it was. The follow up is absolutely terrible. There isn't a single decent song on it. Geoff Tate's voice, while not quite what it used to be, is still far better than most singers. The drumming is still top notch. But the guitar work, without Chris DeGarmo in the band, is far weaker and the…