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May 25, 2015 21:12:57 GMT -5
Post by Wolfgang on May 25, 2015 21:12:57 GMT -5
Theory of Everything
Okay film. What keeps it from being a straight biopic -- which I hate -- is the focus on the love between Stephen Hawking and Jane Wilde. I'm not thoroughly convinced of that love based on what they show in the film but at least it's not a straight biopic. Also, I'm not a fan of Stephen Hawking; that is, I don't hate him or admire him. I don't really know what he contributed to the world of physics. Having said that, a part of me believes that his genius and celebrity are overblown solely because of his disability. I'm sure there are many many brilliant physicists out there who aren't getting the credit they deserve because they don't possess that special something (e.g., disability) that the mass media and pop culture demand. Of course, I could be totally wrong and Hawking is the most brilliant living physicist deserving of all the awards and recognition he's gotten over the years. Someone care to enlighten me?
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May 25, 2015 21:16:11 GMT -5
Post by Wolfgang on May 25, 2015 21:16:11 GMT -5
Ida
Lovely black/white Polish film. A nun-to-be discovers she's Jewish just before her vows. Stuff happens. I liked it simply because it's not a Hollywood-ish film.
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May 26, 2015 13:51:14 GMT -5
Post by mikegarrison on May 26, 2015 13:51:14 GMT -5
Theory of Everything Okay film. What keeps it from being a straight biopic -- which I hate -- is the focus on the love between Stephen Hawking and Jane Wilde. I'm not thoroughly convinced of that love based on what they show in the film but at least it's not a straight biopic. Also, I'm not a fan of Stephen Hawking; that is, I don't hate him or admire him. I don't really know what he contributed to the world of physics. Having said that, a part of me believes that his genius and celebrity are overblown solely because of his disability. I'm sure there are many many brilliant physicists out there who aren't getting the credit they deserve because they don't possess that special something (e.g., disability) that the mass media and pop culture demand. Of course, I could be totally wrong and Hawking is the most brilliant living physicist deserving of all the awards and recognition he's gotten over the years. Someone care to enlighten me? He did actually contribute quite a bit to cosmology. A lot of his influential work deals with black holes. The prediction that some energy will actually escape from a black hole, and that small black holes will "evaporate" involves what is known as Hawking Radiation. As I understand it, the idea is that particles and anti-particles spontaneously pop into existence all the time near the edge of a black hole, and then fall back into it. But sometimes one half will fall into the hole and the other half will not. This has the same effect as mass leaving a black hole. If the black hole is small enough, it has a high enough surface to volume ratio that this radiation of mass will evaporate it.
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May 26, 2015 14:33:48 GMT -5
Post by Wolfgang on May 26, 2015 14:33:48 GMT -5
Okay, mike, let's say that it's a given that Hawking contributed "quite a bit" to physics. How do his contributions compare to all the other contributions made by other contemporary physicists? Are his contributions greater than those made by other physicists? Within the physics community, is he considered a major figure? Within the physics community, is he considered someone deserving of all the recognition he's getting? You don't have to answer any of these questions. My belief -- without any data, of course -- is that he has achieved celebrity status solely because of his disability. I'm sure other physicists have made just as much (or more) contributions to physics but the public can't name any of them. Well, I can name Neil Degrasse Tyson but I associate him with pop physics -- the guy who goes on TV and Nature documentaries and offers his opinions on a variety of physics-related topics. I don't associate him with someone who has achieved anything worthwhile.
The reason for my "beef" is that, like all other fields, there's no one single giant who is head and shoulders above the rest. For example, within literary circles, no one believes J.K. Rowling is the greatest author that ever lived. She just happened to write the most commercially successful series of books (Harry Potter) in the history of literature. If you ask the literary community who they consider to be the greatest living writer, I'm sure you'd get a variety of names ranging from Margaret Atwood to Salman Rushdie to Philip Roth to Cormac McCarthy to Alice Munro. If you ask football coaches who they consider to be the greatest living coach who made the biggest contributions to the sport, you'd get a different list from each coach. If you ask film directors who they consider to have made the biggest contributions to the field of film directing, you'd get a different list. And so on.
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May 26, 2015 17:12:38 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on May 26, 2015 17:12:38 GMT -5
Einstein set the bar pretty high, relatively speaking.
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May 26, 2015 17:18:07 GMT -5
Post by mikegarrison on May 26, 2015 17:18:07 GMT -5
Everybody knows Einstein, but how many know (for instance) Szilárd? Did you know that Szilárd actually wrote the famous letter that Einstein signed, advising FDR that he should start a research program for nuclear weapons? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein–Szilárd_letter
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May 26, 2015 21:01:55 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on May 26, 2015 21:01:55 GMT -5
Never heard of him and I've been reading quite a bit of physics history lately.
And I've been reading The Fabric of the Cosmos for quite a while now. I'm not sure I'm up to it. Decoherence, for instance. Yikes.
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May 29, 2015 14:16:35 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on May 29, 2015 14:16:35 GMT -5
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May 29, 2015 21:42:30 GMT -5
Post by Wolfgang on May 29, 2015 21:42:30 GMT -5
The Babadook
I was really looking forward to this critically acclaimed horror film. I kind of liked the set up in the first half of the film, but as the film went along, I realized it wasn't going to deliver on the promised chills and terror. I do, however, give it a lot of credit for not using the cheap jump scares -- which aren't that scary, just annoying. Overall, disappointing.
A better horror film from the past five years is Mama.
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May 30, 2015 20:08:17 GMT -5
Post by Wolfgang on May 30, 2015 20:08:17 GMT -5
Another Earth
That there's another earth (Earth2) within interplanetary flight distance from our earth (Earth1). Low budget so there isn't a lot of visual or special effects. I'm making it sound better than it really is. It's like a C+ film.
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Jun 2, 2015 11:26:35 GMT -5
Post by vbbetterthanbb on Jun 2, 2015 11:26:35 GMT -5
Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey (2000) www.imdb.com/title/tt0297814/For anybody who has any remote interest in Bruce Lee. The 1978 movie Game of Death would have been much, much better with these footage discovered in the late 90s.
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Jun 8, 2015 16:02:05 GMT -5
Post by tomclen on Jun 8, 2015 16:02:05 GMT -5
Happy Valley is finally available on Netflix streaming.
Very good documentary that really looks at multiple 'sides' of the Sandusky scandal and the Paterno fallout.
Doubt that any hardcore PSU fan would like this movie, but it struck me as very balanced and very well done. There's not much new, in anything, in the documentary...but it does bring a lot of emotional detail to what happened.
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Jun 11, 2015 10:38:15 GMT -5
Post by Wolfgang on Jun 11, 2015 10:38:15 GMT -5
City Lights
Considered Charlie Chaplin's greatest film, it is also in more director's Top Ten lists than any other film. Yes, a silent film. The boxing scene is hilarious. A lot of critics think the final scene is one of the greatest acting moments in film history. I thought it was somewhat awkward and forced. But what do I know?
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Jun 11, 2015 11:31:56 GMT -5
Post by mikegarrison on Jun 11, 2015 11:31:56 GMT -5
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Jun 11, 2015 13:19:22 GMT -5
Post by Wolfgang on Jun 11, 2015 13:19:22 GMT -5
Harry Brown (2009)
Not as good the second time around, but still entertaining. I've always liked Michael Caine, especially when he's unloading head shots. The out-of-control neighborhood battle with the cops with blokes throwing Molotov cocktails causing fire in the streets -- totally forgot that was in the film.
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