9 posts tagged “movies”
One of my fondest memories of my childhood is watching “B movies” on Saturday afternoons with my mom while my dad was still at work. There were the classic vampire, werewolf and ghost stories, but one of my favorites was the 1951 science fiction classic “When Worlds Collide” about (as the title suggests) a collision between the Earth and another planetary body that will destroy both. Unlike the modern incarnations of “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact”, there is no rush to destroy/deflect the incoming body, but there is a last ditch attempt to build an “ark” and evacuate a few and re-start civilization on a (conveniently) trailing (conveniently) Earthlike planet. For the 50s, it was way ahead of its time.
Fast forward to the early 1990s and like a good, young scientist I’m catching up on the literature and while I’m reading Nature one day, I noticed an article entitled “Impacts on the Earth by asteroids and comets: assessing the hazard” – it started off with the cheerful sentence:
There is a 1-in-10,000 chance that a large (2-km diameter) asteroid or comet will collide with the Earth during the next century, disrupting the ecosphere and killing a large fraction of the world's population.
Now I knew that an asteroid impact was the big theory (really only a few years old at the time) that had wiped out dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But the paper went on to explain that things hit the Earth all the time and that – as you might imagine – the frequency of the event and size of the object are inversely proportional – little things hit all the time (and burn up in the atmosphere) – while the impacts of larger objects are exceedingly rare – but not as rare as I thought!
I started digging through the literature and find out that comets and pretty large asteroids– termed Near Earth Objects, or NEOs, capable of producing H-bomb like explosions “get close” fairly often and that we usually don’t notice them until they’re right on top of us.
So, it was with that weird combination of fascination and paranoia that I saw a report the other day that on Monday asteroid 2009DD45 passed within 45,000 miles of the Earth. 2009DD45 was about 100m in diameter and was capable of producing a “nuclear bomb” level explosion similar to that of the famous Tunguska event that flattened a big chunk of Siberia in 1908. For those keeping score, 45,000 miles puts you outside of satellites’ but well inside the Moon’s orbit. The best part – it was first observed only two days before.
Not much time to build an ark. Happy Friday!
So, feeling my way to a question here … Terrorists aren’t just movie villains any more. Do real-world catastrophes such as 9/11 (and the bombs in Madrid, and the ones in London, and the war in Darfur, and … really, all the human-driven, mass loss-of-life events) affect what you choose to read? Personally, I used to enjoy reading Tom Clancy, but haven’t been able to stomach his fight-terrorist kinds of books since.
And, does the reality of that kind of heartless, vicious attack–which happen on smaller scales ALL the time–change the way you feel about villains in the books you read? Are they scarier? Or more two-dimensional and cookie-cutter in the face of the things you see on the news?
The question brings up a couple of interesting reflections on today. The first one was remembering that morning. I was in the process of breaking up with She Who Must Not Be Named, so I got up, showered, got dressed and went to work – no radio, no tv, no lingering. In the car, I’d had a CD in and it continued playing, so I got to work and saw a friend and said a cheerful “Good Morning!” and she looked at me like I had four heads and said, “What’s so good about it?”
This morning, I went about my normal business again and didn’t realize what day it was until I wrote out a check to put in the mail. So, I suppose I must admit it’s not in the forefront of my mind, but I do think about that day (and the days after) at unexpexted times. Much like the strongest memories of my parents don’t occur on their birthdays or holidays or other times you’d expect, but surprisingly out-of-the-blue for the oddest reasons. I'd never thought before that day was similar to the loss of a loved one, but maybe it really is.
Thinking about books, I don’t think 9/11 changed the way I read or the way that I think about villains. When I read fantasy and horror, it’s easy to have the Big Bad as the antagonist – and comforting that there are good guys and bad guys, those villains are simple and not-realistic on purpose. Pure escapism. When I read other novels, I like books about the grayness in people’s lives. What motivates a good person to sin? What drives a bad person to an act of redemption? Why do two well-meaning people end up at odds? Certainly no classic villains there.
I guess villain that made me think of terrorism the most, was the Joker in the recent Batman movie, The Dark Knight. This wasn’t a villain that was greedy, or power-hungry, or a religious or ideological fanatic. Chaos for its own sake – on a very small and personal scale. One of the few re-assuring things about the Cold War was that the prospect of nuclear destruction was both unimaginable and equal-opportunity – everyone bites it, it wasn’t personal. But with terrorists, what if you’re the unlucky guy in that store, on that corner, on that airplane? That’s very personal and all-too-easy to imagine ourselves or our loved ones in that situation. And that’s scary.
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I had a whole idea for Me & My Monday, but of course I forgot my camera today. So, instead of that, I offer a rare movie review. The Beloved and I realized the other day that we don’t go out to see movies all that often. Apparently, we prefer staying in our own backyard and having happy hour to the maddening crowds.
This weekend though, we were both interested and excited to see the latest release from Pixar, WALL-E. This movie is remarkable. Of course it is replete with the mind boggling animation (can we call it animation anymore?) that looks more real than most over-FX’d movies that include actual people that we expect from Pixar, but its so much more than eye-candy. To me, this one is near that "Finding Nemo" pinnacle.
WALL-E tells the story of an industrious trash-picking-up robot (who's developed a few idiosyncrasies) that works in New Jersey on an apocalyptic future Earth that humans have fled because of trash and pollution (but it was probably based on the stretch of the NJ Turnpike from say, exits 9 through 16). Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the movie is that essentially has no dialog. The robot stars are anthropomorphized for sure, but this is the best example of visual story telling I’ve seen since Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s episode “Hush” – without the creepy evil or sexual innuendo.
I won’t give away the plot or resolution (they pulled one punch that would have really made this movie transcend all family fare, but I can’t nit-pick their choices…), but as with Pixar stories they wrap the Big Themes around very small personal stories, and this is no different. There are also enough inside jokes to keep adults happy.
This one sure was.
Tamzen tagged me the other day to come up with eight random things about myself. I’ve done a couple of these before, so this weekend I tried to think of some stories/events/traits that I might not have previously discussed. As I went through them, I realized they clustered into a couple of sub-categories.
Education
1. I am a product of 12 years of Catholic school education (I never went to kindergarten, and no, I don’t know why – my school had it, I just never went.). During that education, I saw a 3rd grader punch a nun in the stomach, a teacher dangle a 6th grade student by the ankles from a third story boys bathroom window (it was not me), and knew an ~80 year old nun (Sister Narcissus. Really.) that would smite bad children with her rather hefty cane (occasionally, that was me). I’m sure parents today would sue the pants off the school for the last two – we just thought it was Standard Operating Procedure.
2. In my high school, there was a fairly high preponderance of students drinking (gasp!). A couple friends and I decided one day that it would be fun to be drunk while at school, so we went over behind a nearby 7-11 and got drunk at ~7:30 a.m. One poorly-planned aspect of this was that I had a chemistry test 1st period. In science classes, I was the nerd that always finished first, but not that day – I was the last person to turn my test in and my teacher asked me if I was feeling okay. I got a 94.
3. When I was in graduate school at North Carolina – I was fairly active in my Church and one year decided that I would teach CCD (religious education). Because I was a guy, I was given 7th grade students (in the hope that they would “respect” a male teacher more) b/c these classes had been discipline problems in the past. I never used the textbook (which always peeved my coordinator) but decided to challenge the young adults with discussions about “issues and choices” – drinking, academic cheating, gossiping, violence, consumerism, etc. I did it for last two years I was there. I thought it worked.
Entertainment
4. I like gambling. I always have – cards, casinos, football bets – I’m probably pretty interested. One of my earliest vacation memories is when I was 6-years old, my family took the Great American Road Trip vacation – New Jersey to California and back by car. On the return we stopped in Las Vegas and stayed at what was then the brand-new Flamingo. My mom snuck me in the back of the gambling floor and let me play the slot machines. I think we got fussed at by security after a while, but it was pretty fun for me! Maybe that’s where it all started.
5. I like B-movies. You know, cheesy black-and-white horror movies. I’m pretty sure that this is derived from often watching them on Saturday afternoons with my mom (this was back in the ~10 channels of broadcast TV days, and there was a horror movie shown on one of the UHF channels every Saturday). My dad worked six days a week, so my mom would make us a late-lunch and we’d set out trays and eat in the living room and watch them together. Still a pretty special memory for me.
Poor Dating Behavior
6. One of my less-proud male moments was when I went to our freshman “prom” with a girl that I didn’t really like all that much. But you see, I had a crush on her friend (who’d suggested to me that I take the girl) and my 15-year-old mind thought that if I took the girl I didn’t like all that much that I might score points with the girl I was interested in. The dance was fine, but afterwards I must have said something stupid to someone, because word got back to my date about my motivations and I was forced to endure the public in-the-hall crying and recriminations.
7. One of my less-proud male moments came when I was in college when I made the dubious decision to “go steady” with two different girls concurrently. One was a girl that lived in PA – we had gotten close when we were sophomores, but she transferred to a small school near where she lived. So, I’d drive up to see her, while I also pursued a relationship with another girl in my class (think at-school girlfriend and away-from-school girlfriend). Once, while PA-girl and I were walking in the mall, I casually called her by the other girl’s name. I was then forced to endure the public in-the-mall crying and recriminations.
8. In graduate school, I had an ex-girlfriend that waited for me in my parking lot one night, confronted me when I arrived home, and became so demonstrably angry during the ensuing argument that she punched the side of her car and broke her hand. She was convinced that I had cheated on her when we were dating – I hadn’t, but that jealous-streak was the main reason she was my ex-girlfriend. She is fondly referred to now as Broken Hand Girl.
Consider yourself betagged if you liked reading these at all!
Okay -- I got tagged by Hannabanana and by Byron and I thought this was a pretty good one... so, here goes...
Four jobs I have had in my life
1. Janitor at the grade school I attended.
2. Synthetic organic chemist (polymer chemist trying to make --- um --- synthetic blood additives, yeah I'll just stop now...)
3. Car-buying associate for car leasing outfit (Weird job, I’d buy cars over the phone from lots all over the country and then lease them to people that wanted them – weird. Definitely pre-internet.)
4. Lumber yard worker and forklift operator
Four movies I would watch over and over
1. Jaws
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. The Empire Strikes Back
4. The Fellowship of the Ring
Four places I have never gone, but want to
1. South America
2. Australia
3. Alaska
4. Antarctica
Four songs on the CD player right now: (iTunes, in this case)
1. Constant Craving – k.d. lang
2. Goodbye Blue Sky – Pink Floyd
3. Tiny Vessels – Death Cab For Cutie
4. The Last DJ – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Four TV shows I love/like (now airing):
1. Veronica Mars
2. Battlestar Galactica
3. LOST
4. Heroes
Four TV shows I love/like (no longer airing):
1. Arrested Development
2. Babylon-5 (as far as I can remember, the original “arc” show – I think I need to post about this)
3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (skip the last season, ok?)
4. The X-Files (before the movie, if you please)
Four places I've been on vacation
1. Paris, France
2. Kauai, Hawaii
3. Down The Shore
4. Seattle, Washington
Four of my favorite foods are
1. Big giant steak and the sweet potato crumbly thing that I’m pretty sure is made with crack at Ruth’s Chris
2. Vietnamese Pho
3. Roast Turkey, Thanksgiving style and all the trimmings
4. Two eggs, over-easy with corned beef hash, sourdough toast and black coffee (scrapple when back in NJ-PA)
Four places I would rather be right now
1. Rancho La Puerta
2. Skiing in the Rockies, or the Sierras I suppose
3. Sequoia National Park
4. International Space Station
Okay --- off to watch Heroes! (No explicit tagging, but I encourage the guy that hasn't shaved in months, the gal that just got her hair cut, and my friends currently living in the Southern Hemisphere to participate)
Coming back on the flight from Dulles to San Diego on New Year's Day, I took out my trusty moleskine notebook and began jotting down ideas for bloggable things. It's a long flight -- the first thing was yesterday's post about the differences in roads and driving on the East and West Coasts, which seemed to strike a nerve in a LOT of people... which is great. :)
I spent more time (in between bouts of dozing off -- it was frakking hot on that plane) reflecting on 2006 and decided to put down a few favorites in some random categories that came to me. Note: often there might be a difference between what was favorite and what was best. For example --
Television Show. Veronica Mars. I have written and commented several times in these parts that Battlestar Galactica is the best show on tv -- and honestly, I think it is. That said, I enjoyed VM more than any show this year. For the first thing, I discovered it early in '06, catching Season-2 on its repeat cycle and back-filling Season-1 when I could. This is the most smartly written show on TV, mixing mystery, personal drama, humor, pop culture references as others around here will attest to. Also, sometimes BG can be overly serious (rare smiles there, but engrossing) -- this show always kept me guessing and loving every minute of it. After a somewhat slow start to Season-3, I think it has hit a good stride once again.
Film. Little Miss Sunshine. This film, unlike more polished films that were Oscar contenders and winners such as Crash, Capote, Brokeback Mountain, Syriana, and The Queen (all of which I saw in 2006 and all of which I enjoyed), was an unexpected delight. It is the simple story of a family toughing it out despite their difficulties and trying to do the right thing for their youngest daughter. Dad is trying desperately to "make it", the wife seems to be fighting with that "is this really what I want from my life" question throughout. The rest of the family is a mess or oblivious. The film is smart, quirky, insightful, and funny (painfully at times). And I'm pretty sure I can never listen to "Superfreak" in quite the same way again.
Sports Moment. Rutgers Beats Louisville. Thomas Jefferson once described New Jersey as "a barrel tapped at both ends". It was true in colonial times and still is -- New Jersey relies heavily on its proximity to New York and Philadelphia for its "identity" and I think you have to be from New Jersey to really appreciate what having Rutgers be good means. For my entire life (and for the life of my parents for that matter) the Scarlet Knights have been terrible -- the laughingstock of college football. A free win in the Big East. And here they were in a battle of unbeatens, downing Louisville in a great game to crack the Top 10 and take aim at the BCS. Sadly, they stumbled down the stretch and did not make the BCS, but for one night New Jersey outshined its neighbors. In a bit of redemption, they stomped K-State in the Texas Bowl 37-10 and their coach has not bolted for any "better" opportunities as might be expected.
Book. Wizard and Glass by Stephen King. In a recent post, I mistakenly identified "The Sex Lives of Cannibals" by J Maarten Troost as my favorite book of last year -- then I realized I'd read it in 2005. Don't get me wrong, its great (and hysterical) but can't count for this year.
At the beginning of the year, at the prompting of a friend, I started reading the Gunslinger Series by King. I'd loved King's material in the 70s, hated most of his stuff from the 80s, and had a bit of a rekindling in the 90s starting with "The Green Mile". But this serialized epic never really got my interest, but on my friend's urging, I gave it a try. And I loved it. And to me, "W&G" is the epitome of the series -- it still had the mythic tone that was a hallmark of the first books in the series before the setting became more "real". The majority of this book is actually a departure from the "main" story, filling in the backstory (previously hinted at) of the protagonist, Roland. It is full of action, intrigue, portent, love (generally not a SK strongpoint, but done well here), joy and tragedy. I've read books this year that were a lot more serious and literary, but I enjoyed this one best of all.
Vacation Moment. Grand Tetons Flower Field. After a week at a family reunion in Minnesota, we took a drive across the country to see Glacier National Park in Montana, Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, and then finished off with Grand Teton National Park just south of Yellowstone. During the stay at Grand Teton we decided to take a tram to the top of one of the mountains and hike down. Its all downhill, so how hard can it be, right? Well, it was 14 miles downhill and quite a full day -- we, uh, coulda used a little more water at times. But anyway, about a third of the way down, we came out of the treeline into a huge rolling meadow. The meadow was covered (and I mean covered!) with mostly yellow flowers (and a few of other colors). It was breathtaking. And the amazing thing was that it went on for what had to be more than a mile. We hiked in that meadow for at least 30 minutes without pause -- all the time surrounded by a blanket of wildflowers -- and I don't think we saw anyone else the entire time. It was completely unexpected and unriveled in my mind. The picture at left does it no justice.
Album. Plans by Death Cab For Cutie. This band was another discovery for me this year, and I really got into their albums a lot mid-year. I'm a big lyrics person and the ones here are smart and thoughtful and at times, snarky. I love the sound -- a good blend between production and simplicity. My favorite song has to be "Someday (You Will Be Loved)" which is marvelously cynical. I think that the very best songs on "Transatlanticism" are better than the ones here, but overall this is the stronger CD. I'm very curious to see what they put out next.
Okay -- this may seem a little obvious to someone of my generation -- but the defining film villian HAS to be Darth Vader, right? And I mean Star Wars & Empire Vader, not RotJ and GOD FORBID the more recent films' incarnation.
Sauron from LotR was too disembodied to have enough sense of presence.
Hannibal Lecter perhaps runs a reasonable second.
What about the "Alien" from "Alien" and "Aliens"? They were tough, smart and deadly -- though I'm not sure they were evil. But don't count the third movie because it was so wretched -- though I'm sort of surprised to say that AVP was kinda good campy fun.
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