Forever Tango is completing its current run on Broadway tonight. The limited engagement brought the show back to New York City for the first time in many years.
This is a must see show. It captures the spirit of Argentine Tango in a wonderful mix of music, dance, song, and spirit. The format of the show is basically an alternation of music only numbers, performed by the small on-stage orchestra, and dances performed in front of and to the music of this orchestra. Much of the music is arrangements of pieces by Astor Piazzolla, one of the great tango composers.
In the current staging, this pattern was punctuated by one song and one comic dance number in each act. There are also a number of more balletic performances that involve over the head lifts and other athleticism by both the male and female performers.
While impressive, these modern riffs on Argentine Tango only showed how powerful the real thing can be. Marcela Duran, in particular, was spectacular. It was a pleasure to see her after the show interacting with fans outside the stage door of the Walter Kerr Theater on 48th Street.
Sit where you can see all the footwork. Tango has some of the most explosive and flashing footwork of any dance.
The on-stage orchestra was unnecessarily miked. The reult was that the clicking keys of the bandoneon were as loud as the music.
Overall, a great experience. See it if you can!
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Sunday, May 29, 2011
How the Earth Was Made, reviewed by David vun Kannon
I picked up Seasons 1 and 2 of this History Channel series at Barnes & Noble recently.
This is excellent science television. Season 1 takes the viewer through a history of the Earth from its formation to the arrival of Mankind, sort of like the original conception of Fantasia's Rite of Spring. I was most interested in the first episodes that dealt with the formation of the Earth until the beginnings of life. Was there an era in the past when the seas were green and the sky pink?
Season 2 focuses of specific features or events and explains them in depth. I was very impressed by how the series showed the experimental evidence for each idea and tied it to the facts observed. A large variety of working scieintists were showcased. Even one from my alma mater, Hofstra University! Talking about rocks that I've visited!!
Worth watching, worth owning.
This is excellent science television. Season 1 takes the viewer through a history of the Earth from its formation to the arrival of Mankind, sort of like the original conception of Fantasia's Rite of Spring. I was most interested in the first episodes that dealt with the formation of the Earth until the beginnings of life. Was there an era in the past when the seas were green and the sky pink?
Season 2 focuses of specific features or events and explains them in depth. I was very impressed by how the series showed the experimental evidence for each idea and tied it to the facts observed. A large variety of working scieintists were showcased. Even one from my alma mater, Hofstra University! Talking about rocks that I've visited!!
Worth watching, worth owning.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Signature in the Cell, reviewed by David vun Kannon
I won my copy of Signature in the Cell in an essay contest on the intelligent design advocacy blog, Uncommon Descent. I didn't even pay for shipping.
I made a strong attempt to read it through in order to write a review of the book for UD. Sadly, that blog often bans dissenting voices, so my review will have to be published here instead.
The book is too long for its stated purpose. For its unstated purpose, it is about right. The stated purpose is to review the history of DNA science, and Meyer's own life, as a framework to explain the inadequacy of naturalistic explanations of the genetic code. The unstated purpose is to throw a lot of basic history and science at the reader so that when the science becomes merely 'sciencey' most will not notice the transition. The result is that three small books (DNA for Dummies, My Life, and ID, the Theory That Couldn't) have been woven together and sold as one.
On p. 143, Meyer tells us that "The idea of design helped liberate Western science from such fact-free reasoning." "Such" reasoning belonged to the Greeks that argued from first principles, and purely from logic, to the actual state of the world. Signature in the Cell almost immediately falls back into that error when Meyer argues purely from logic, analogy, and common sense instead of experiment and calculation.
This abandonment of experiment is what most clearly justifies calling the book non-scientific, and even anti-scientific. A good example is Meyer's treatment of Michael Polanyi's arguments on pp 237-243. Meyer is convinced when Polanyi 'argues', 'insists', and 'concludes' all without doing a single experiment. It is the logical structure that is convincing. This is a retreat from science.
Polanyi's argument is central to many claims of ID, so lets talk about it a bit deeper. Polanyi makes the claim that to function as a code, the order of the bases can't be forced by potential energy. ATC and G must be free to come in any order. This is argued by analogy to human communication systems.
However, we already know there are exceptions to such rules. In English, Q must be followed by U. And yet, we somehow stumble forward using English to communicate. Similarly, there may be slight influences in base to base sequence.
Polanyi was writing when almost nothing had been sequenced, today we have thousands of complete genomes to test the idea. But testing the idea is irrelevant if Meyer is already convinced by the logic.
Since Meyer is focused on the genetic code, Polanyi's argument is a major intellectual roadblock. Sequence independence of symbols is far less important than the translation from one symbol system to another, in understanding what a code is and how it functions. DNA is a code for protein (and RNA). Sequence independence means random sequences can acquire meaning slowly and stochastically, not that the entire code was graven on tablets of stone before the world's creation, and then delivered from heaven by a choir of angels.
This process of "acquiring meaning" in the case of the genetic code means narrowing down the association of each triplet of bases from any random amino acid to a specific amino acid. There is a lot of evidence that this process is at least in part driven by the laws of physics and chemistry, contra Polanyi's pronouncements of 40 years ago. But you are not going to learn that from Signature in the Cell.
Meyer also indulges in a 'big number' argument about the size of proteins (and RNA polymers). Starting from an assertion that we need 150 amino acids for functionality, and old and often refuted argument follows that the universe doesn't have the resources to find even one such protein. Sadly no. Meyer ignores all evidence that vastly smaller fragments of protein have useful function.
Function in proteins is often associated not with a specific arrangement of amino acids, but with the polar/non-polar nature of the amino acid. (If you want to think in terms of symbols, this is cutting down the number of symbols from 22 to 2.) While the universe can't explore 22^150 sequences, it certainly can explore 2^15 sequences, then use two of the best 15-length sequences together in a 30-length sequence. Etc, Etc. But Stephen Meyer is not going to tell you that.
Signature in the Cell is padded with a lot of historical information. Dr Meyer can claim that it is included to show that he is giving every argument a fair opportunity. Exactly the opposite is true. In chapter 14, pp 296-297, Meyer recounts an exchange with Dr Kenneth Miller over his coverage of the RNA world in an article from 2000.
The article, DNA and Other Designs, is still available on the Discovery Institute web site. I recommend reading it, since it says just about everything that Meyer says in this large book, and for free. But just as Signature in the Cell recapitulates and expands on that article, it recapitulates the error of that article as well. As Dr Miller complained in 2000, Stephen Meyer lies by omission by "not having the space" to mention 20 years worth of research in the RNA World hypothesis. Now it is 28 years, and the page count of Signature in the Cell spent on long forgotten theories crowds out discussion of current theories and work that directly undercuts the main ideas of the book.
There is no mention of the work of Michael Yarus' lab, no mention of the stereochemical hypothesis in the origin of the genetic code. This is the key work that Meyer has to come to grips with if his whole facade of looking into every possibility is to have any credibility at all.
It might be an acceptible debating technique to dodge your opponents best arguments until the time runs out, but that kind of rope-a-dope argumentation isn't science. That is the bottom line verdict on this book. It is not looking at everything and arguing to the best explanation. It is picking and choosing, retelling lots of old stories, personal stories, and some basic science, while avoiding the experiments and evidence that would challenge ID, and collapse its claim to be the best explanation of anything in the universe larger than Stephen Meyer's paycheck. ID explains that perfectly well.
I made a strong attempt to read it through in order to write a review of the book for UD. Sadly, that blog often bans dissenting voices, so my review will have to be published here instead.
The book is too long for its stated purpose. For its unstated purpose, it is about right. The stated purpose is to review the history of DNA science, and Meyer's own life, as a framework to explain the inadequacy of naturalistic explanations of the genetic code. The unstated purpose is to throw a lot of basic history and science at the reader so that when the science becomes merely 'sciencey' most will not notice the transition. The result is that three small books (DNA for Dummies, My Life, and ID, the Theory That Couldn't) have been woven together and sold as one.
On p. 143, Meyer tells us that "The idea of design helped liberate Western science from such fact-free reasoning." "Such" reasoning belonged to the Greeks that argued from first principles, and purely from logic, to the actual state of the world. Signature in the Cell almost immediately falls back into that error when Meyer argues purely from logic, analogy, and common sense instead of experiment and calculation.
This abandonment of experiment is what most clearly justifies calling the book non-scientific, and even anti-scientific. A good example is Meyer's treatment of Michael Polanyi's arguments on pp 237-243. Meyer is convinced when Polanyi 'argues', 'insists', and 'concludes' all without doing a single experiment. It is the logical structure that is convincing. This is a retreat from science.
Polanyi's argument is central to many claims of ID, so lets talk about it a bit deeper. Polanyi makes the claim that to function as a code, the order of the bases can't be forced by potential energy. ATC and G must be free to come in any order. This is argued by analogy to human communication systems.
However, we already know there are exceptions to such rules. In English, Q must be followed by U. And yet, we somehow stumble forward using English to communicate. Similarly, there may be slight influences in base to base sequence.
Polanyi was writing when almost nothing had been sequenced, today we have thousands of complete genomes to test the idea. But testing the idea is irrelevant if Meyer is already convinced by the logic.
Since Meyer is focused on the genetic code, Polanyi's argument is a major intellectual roadblock. Sequence independence of symbols is far less important than the translation from one symbol system to another, in understanding what a code is and how it functions. DNA is a code for protein (and RNA). Sequence independence means random sequences can acquire meaning slowly and stochastically, not that the entire code was graven on tablets of stone before the world's creation, and then delivered from heaven by a choir of angels.
This process of "acquiring meaning" in the case of the genetic code means narrowing down the association of each triplet of bases from any random amino acid to a specific amino acid. There is a lot of evidence that this process is at least in part driven by the laws of physics and chemistry, contra Polanyi's pronouncements of 40 years ago. But you are not going to learn that from Signature in the Cell.
Meyer also indulges in a 'big number' argument about the size of proteins (and RNA polymers). Starting from an assertion that we need 150 amino acids for functionality, and old and often refuted argument follows that the universe doesn't have the resources to find even one such protein. Sadly no. Meyer ignores all evidence that vastly smaller fragments of protein have useful function.
Function in proteins is often associated not with a specific arrangement of amino acids, but with the polar/non-polar nature of the amino acid. (If you want to think in terms of symbols, this is cutting down the number of symbols from 22 to 2.) While the universe can't explore 22^150 sequences, it certainly can explore 2^15 sequences, then use two of the best 15-length sequences together in a 30-length sequence. Etc, Etc. But Stephen Meyer is not going to tell you that.
Signature in the Cell is padded with a lot of historical information. Dr Meyer can claim that it is included to show that he is giving every argument a fair opportunity. Exactly the opposite is true. In chapter 14, pp 296-297, Meyer recounts an exchange with Dr Kenneth Miller over his coverage of the RNA world in an article from 2000.
The article, DNA and Other Designs, is still available on the Discovery Institute web site. I recommend reading it, since it says just about everything that Meyer says in this large book, and for free. But just as Signature in the Cell recapitulates and expands on that article, it recapitulates the error of that article as well. As Dr Miller complained in 2000, Stephen Meyer lies by omission by "not having the space" to mention 20 years worth of research in the RNA World hypothesis. Now it is 28 years, and the page count of Signature in the Cell spent on long forgotten theories crowds out discussion of current theories and work that directly undercuts the main ideas of the book.
There is no mention of the work of Michael Yarus' lab, no mention of the stereochemical hypothesis in the origin of the genetic code. This is the key work that Meyer has to come to grips with if his whole facade of looking into every possibility is to have any credibility at all.
It might be an acceptible debating technique to dodge your opponents best arguments until the time runs out, but that kind of rope-a-dope argumentation isn't science. That is the bottom line verdict on this book. It is not looking at everything and arguing to the best explanation. It is picking and choosing, retelling lots of old stories, personal stories, and some basic science, while avoiding the experiments and evidence that would challenge ID, and collapse its claim to be the best explanation of anything in the universe larger than Stephen Meyer's paycheck. ID explains that perfectly well.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Review: Toy Story 3
Pixar is now, what, 11 for 11?
As a sequel, TS3 does suffer from replaying various bits of shtik that you've seen before. But the whole framing story works well, and the last scene is a bit of a tear jerker. There are also several laugh out loud moments in which I think the whole audience was laughing at once. No mean feat, that.
I saw the film in 3D. I can honestly say that I did not see one case where 3D was used obtrusively, as a gimmick, an effect you were supposed to notice. Neither was the film flat. I think the filmmakers hit an effective balance. (The same cannot be said for Avatar, for example.)
Pros:
Spanish Buzz
Ken
Totoro as Miyazaki homage
Cons:
"Night and Day", the short before the main film, was not as strong as previous films. I know, I'm reaching.
As a sequel, TS3 does suffer from replaying various bits of shtik that you've seen before. But the whole framing story works well, and the last scene is a bit of a tear jerker. There are also several laugh out loud moments in which I think the whole audience was laughing at once. No mean feat, that.
I saw the film in 3D. I can honestly say that I did not see one case where 3D was used obtrusively, as a gimmick, an effect you were supposed to notice. Neither was the film flat. I think the filmmakers hit an effective balance. (The same cannot be said for Avatar, for example.)
Pros:
Spanish Buzz
Ken
Totoro as Miyazaki homage
Cons:
"Night and Day", the short before the main film, was not as strong as previous films. I know, I'm reaching.
Review: Legion
I saw this on the small screen of an airplane. That is about what it deserved.
The story is a combination of Terminator (imminent end of the world, the baby must die, pursued by unstoppable big guy) and "X of the Dead" (small group of strangers trapped in the house by zombies) movie.
It doesn't really work, since running away from the Terminator was the only effective strategy.
Pros:
None
Cons:
laughable CGI
you can tell an angel by their British accent
The story is a combination of Terminator (imminent end of the world, the baby must die, pursued by unstoppable big guy) and "X of the Dead" (small group of strangers trapped in the house by zombies) movie.
It doesn't really work, since running away from the Terminator was the only effective strategy.
Pros:
None
Cons:
laughable CGI
you can tell an angel by their British accent
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Review: The Digital Plague, by Jeff Somers
I bought this book to read on the plane. It was a good value for the price.
The cover advertises it as 'nano-noir', a term I would agree with. It is science fiction with a hard boiled detective edge, and a good dose of humor.
The lead character and narrator, Avery Cates, is a successful assassin. Cates and his world were introduced in Somer's previous novel, The Electric Church. I have not read that book, but as in all sequels much of the plot and characters in that book are quickly sketched in this one.
The book is fun and fast-paced. Its problems are relatively minor, but the editor was asleep at the wheel a few times.
My big issue with the book is that it tries to put too many ideas forward at the same time, instead of limiting itself to the exploration of one idea fully. One key idea in particular is terribly motivated, and even the characters agree is inexplicable. It appears to exist only to punch up flagging adrenaline levels and created scenes that might be more cinematic if filmed.
Good entertainment value at the paperback price. I will go back and buy the first book, and the next in the series as well.
The cover advertises it as 'nano-noir', a term I would agree with. It is science fiction with a hard boiled detective edge, and a good dose of humor.
The lead character and narrator, Avery Cates, is a successful assassin. Cates and his world were introduced in Somer's previous novel, The Electric Church. I have not read that book, but as in all sequels much of the plot and characters in that book are quickly sketched in this one.
The book is fun and fast-paced. Its problems are relatively minor, but the editor was asleep at the wheel a few times.
My big issue with the book is that it tries to put too many ideas forward at the same time, instead of limiting itself to the exploration of one idea fully. One key idea in particular is terribly motivated, and even the characters agree is inexplicable. It appears to exist only to punch up flagging adrenaline levels and created scenes that might be more cinematic if filmed.
Good entertainment value at the paperback price. I will go back and buy the first book, and the next in the series as well.
Review: Sherlock Holmes
I saw Sherlock Holmes last night with my son.
Likes:
Title design
Set dressing
Irene Adler
Humor
Dislikes:
That same washed out color palette you've seen in other recent films.
For those who enjoyed Robert Downey Jr. in Ironman, Sherlock Holmes (the film) has a bit of steampunk Tony Stark to the character Sherlock Holmes. Jude Law plays Dr Watson very well in my view. Rachel McAdams plays Irene Adler, the moral, comic, romantic, and intellectual foil (and equal) to Downey's Holmes.
One of the joys of detective fiction for a reader is to see if they can solve the mystery before the main character. This is difficult in film detective stories, but this film does honor the trope by at least letting you see the clues, even if they whiz by too fast to process until the requisite flashback at the end.
Holmes and Watson as the bickering odd couple got old fast, though it was better than the fawning hero worship versions of Watson in other films.
The least likable parts of the film are the fight scenes. Holmes does have a reputation 'in canon' as a boxer and martial artist, so I am not objecting that they are out of character. Rather, they are filmed in gratuitous slo-mo intercut with sped up footage on some very cluttered sets. The result is some very muddy views of the action - who is hitting whom how.
Recommended - a well made 'reboot' (though not 'origins') genre film. Strong detective, minor steampunk notes, and no bitter aftertaste.
Likes:
Title design
Set dressing
Irene Adler
Humor
Dislikes:
That same washed out color palette you've seen in other recent films.
For those who enjoyed Robert Downey Jr. in Ironman, Sherlock Holmes (the film) has a bit of steampunk Tony Stark to the character Sherlock Holmes. Jude Law plays Dr Watson very well in my view. Rachel McAdams plays Irene Adler, the moral, comic, romantic, and intellectual foil (and equal) to Downey's Holmes.
One of the joys of detective fiction for a reader is to see if they can solve the mystery before the main character. This is difficult in film detective stories, but this film does honor the trope by at least letting you see the clues, even if they whiz by too fast to process until the requisite flashback at the end.
Holmes and Watson as the bickering odd couple got old fast, though it was better than the fawning hero worship versions of Watson in other films.
The least likable parts of the film are the fight scenes. Holmes does have a reputation 'in canon' as a boxer and martial artist, so I am not objecting that they are out of character. Rather, they are filmed in gratuitous slo-mo intercut with sped up footage on some very cluttered sets. The result is some very muddy views of the action - who is hitting whom how.
Recommended - a well made 'reboot' (though not 'origins') genre film. Strong detective, minor steampunk notes, and no bitter aftertaste.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Review: G.I. Joe The Rise of COBRA
Let's get this out of the way - this is one silly film. Silly in the way of '60s era films deconstructed by The Incredibles, played straight. It reminds me strongly of the story lines constructed by seven-year olds when they are playing on the floor with their toys -
"Bang! You're dead!"
"You missed so my guy is still alive!"
"OK, but then the whole place explodes! Whoosh!"
Now some people might say that this is appropriate for a GI Joe film, but with ticket prices what they are, I was hoping for something more. Alas.
Deep silliness. When the ebbil viwans (BWAHAHAHA!) blow up the ice pack over their undersea lair, the huge chunks of ice fall ponderously through the water to crush the base. Falls. Through. The. Water. ICE!!
I have to admit that by the time this happens in the film, you are ready for silliness. So much silliness has preceded it.
Upsides:
"Bang! You're dead!"
"You missed so my guy is still alive!"
"OK, but then the whole place explodes! Whoosh!"
Now some people might say that this is appropriate for a GI Joe film, but with ticket prices what they are, I was hoping for something more. Alas.
Deep silliness. When the ebbil viwans (BWAHAHAHA!) blow up the ice pack over their undersea lair, the huge chunks of ice fall ponderously through the water to crush the base. Falls. Through. The. Water. ICE!!
I have to admit that by the time this happens in the film, you are ready for silliness. So much silliness has preceded it.
Upsides:
- In the future, Jonathan Pryce will be President.
- breast accentuating bodysuits
- decolletage to China for the bad girl
- kissing (in a film meant for small boys)
- Dennis Quaid striking poses last seen in green plastic figures
Downsides:
- Undersea battle as WWII dogfight
- dialog delivery last seen during the silent film era
- dodging rocket fire in slo mo
- Mach 6 aircraft chases down missile over Moscow and then catches missile over Washington DC!
- trashing Paris
Interestingly, the only intelligent line in the film is delivered by one of the villains, over the issue of human jealousy. Homer did a pretty good job with that, but in this film it just gets blown away. Wait for the DVD, and then don't buy it.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
District 9 review
Peter Jackson employs his awesome CGI talent to bring us a wicked satire and cautionary, somber tale about race and discrimination, constructed a very new cast and director. However, the story is told in a mixture of cinema verite clips from the cameras ever present in our society and traditional storytelling that I found to be an uneasy blend.
Twenty years ago, a giant spaceship coasted to a stop over Johannesburg, South Africa. It did nothing for a month. and humans cut their way in after getting impatient. They found the prawns, slightly more than man sized aliens, mostly dazed, confused, sick, and malnourished. First contact immediately became a disaster relief effort. The million odd prawns were transfered down to a sprawling tent city that quickly became a slum, with an especially nasty Nigerian crime lord preying on the Prawns as they pick over mountains of garbage and squabble over cow heads and cans of cat food. Human/alien tensions are constant and high. Now the relief agency MNU wants to relocate the prawns of District 9 to a new area, further away from Jo'burg.
The public face of the relocation effort is chosen to be a hapless civil servant, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copely), a clueless bureaucrat whose main qualification seems to be his marriage to the daughter of the head of the agency. While he is casually racist and ignorant himself, he seems to be honestly unaware of the darker death squad/concentration camp guard mentality of the armed forces who regularly confront the prawns.
Things never go right as our antihero is filmed going door to door through the slum, knocking on the doors of shanties and trying to get uncomprehending aliens to sign away their civil rights in a forced relocation. For an American, a lot will resonate with our government's repeated treatment native Americans.
He finds gun caches, an illegal egg hatchery (which is casually incinerated), and stumbles finally into the shanty of the only intelligent prawns around, who have been trying to cobble together a repair for their ship for the last twenty years. Wikus confiscates their fuel source, in the process exposing himself to a powerful mutagen that begins to turn him into a prawn.
For Wikus, things go downhill from there. The last half of the film is a lot ordnance exploding, a lot of bodies and heads exploding, as Wikus tries to save himself and make the switch from antihero to hero, which will necessitate the choice to save someone besides himself. There is humor and it is black. The film owes much to our experience of Uprisings, Intifada, and Iraq on TV and in previous movies.
There are issues of course. Aficionados of the X Files will be muttering "Black oil" to themselves before their popcorn is cold. A major plot point is forcing Wikus to fire alien weapons that only respond to prawn DNA, why this never was done with prawns themselves is unexplained. Why the mothership is not full of human scientists is never explained.
As a morality tale, Peter Jackson' team is working the same ground as JK Rowling. His tale is a far more adult, violent, bloodier version, of course. Pureblood and mudblood, wizard and Muggle, human and Prawn, why can't we all just get along? See it.
Twenty years ago, a giant spaceship coasted to a stop over Johannesburg, South Africa. It did nothing for a month. and humans cut their way in after getting impatient. They found the prawns, slightly more than man sized aliens, mostly dazed, confused, sick, and malnourished. First contact immediately became a disaster relief effort. The million odd prawns were transfered down to a sprawling tent city that quickly became a slum, with an especially nasty Nigerian crime lord preying on the Prawns as they pick over mountains of garbage and squabble over cow heads and cans of cat food. Human/alien tensions are constant and high. Now the relief agency MNU wants to relocate the prawns of District 9 to a new area, further away from Jo'burg.
The public face of the relocation effort is chosen to be a hapless civil servant, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copely), a clueless bureaucrat whose main qualification seems to be his marriage to the daughter of the head of the agency. While he is casually racist and ignorant himself, he seems to be honestly unaware of the darker death squad/concentration camp guard mentality of the armed forces who regularly confront the prawns.
Things never go right as our antihero is filmed going door to door through the slum, knocking on the doors of shanties and trying to get uncomprehending aliens to sign away their civil rights in a forced relocation. For an American, a lot will resonate with our government's repeated treatment native Americans.
He finds gun caches, an illegal egg hatchery (which is casually incinerated), and stumbles finally into the shanty of the only intelligent prawns around, who have been trying to cobble together a repair for their ship for the last twenty years. Wikus confiscates their fuel source, in the process exposing himself to a powerful mutagen that begins to turn him into a prawn.
For Wikus, things go downhill from there. The last half of the film is a lot ordnance exploding, a lot of bodies and heads exploding, as Wikus tries to save himself and make the switch from antihero to hero, which will necessitate the choice to save someone besides himself. There is humor and it is black. The film owes much to our experience of Uprisings, Intifada, and Iraq on TV and in previous movies.
There are issues of course. Aficionados of the X Files will be muttering "Black oil" to themselves before their popcorn is cold. A major plot point is forcing Wikus to fire alien weapons that only respond to prawn DNA, why this never was done with prawns themselves is unexplained. Why the mothership is not full of human scientists is never explained.
As a morality tale, Peter Jackson' team is working the same ground as JK Rowling. His tale is a far more adult, violent, bloodier version, of course. Pureblood and mudblood, wizard and Muggle, human and Prawn, why can't we all just get along? See it.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Review - I Sell The Dead
My son Daniel and I went see this at the Quad Cinema on 13th St., the only place it was showing in NYC.
This film was a lot of fun!
A real horror/comedy with a good script and many funny moments. The movie is told as a series of flashbacks interspersed with present time dialogue. The dialogue is a bit slow, and had the filmmakers had more money, would have done better and quickened the pace as voice over narration. The take on many tropes of horror is quirky and funny. The ending ties up many story threads in a satisfying way. I was worried while watching the film that the anecdotes would be simply disconnected short stories, but the script brings most of them together by the end.
The main characters are interesting and sympathetic enough, and enough of the cast is still around by the end that a sequel would be doable. If you are in New York, go see it while you can, otherwise look for it on video. A worthwhile diversion.
This film was a lot of fun!
A real horror/comedy with a good script and many funny moments. The movie is told as a series of flashbacks interspersed with present time dialogue. The dialogue is a bit slow, and had the filmmakers had more money, would have done better and quickened the pace as voice over narration. The take on many tropes of horror is quirky and funny. The ending ties up many story threads in a satisfying way. I was worried while watching the film that the anecdotes would be simply disconnected short stories, but the script brings most of them together by the end.
The main characters are interesting and sympathetic enough, and enough of the cast is still around by the end that a sequel would be doable. If you are in New York, go see it while you can, otherwise look for it on video. A worthwhile diversion.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Review: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
I was thinking of a snarky title for this, like "Harry Potter and the Half Dead Series", but decided against it. Yes, it was that hard to generate any enthusiasm for the film.
It is impossible to consider any HP film on its own merits. They will always stand in reference to the books that spawned them as derivative media properties. In this case, the film comes off as a Cliff Notes/ADD (Shiny!) version of the book.
Details, details:
It is impossible to consider any HP film on its own merits. They will always stand in reference to the books that spawned them as derivative media properties. In this case, the film comes off as a Cliff Notes/ADD (Shiny!) version of the book.
Details, details:
- The Weasley twins' joke shop seems to have taken over the Gringotts Bank space on the Diagon Alley set. The twins speak in unison, which is less amusing than their previous style, but in the rush-rush pace of the movie probably saves a few seconds. A poor trade-off.
- Much of the film has the same washed out, over-exposed color palette and photography that marked Terminator Salvation and bits of Star Trek. I hope this is a fashion that soon passes in Hollywood.
- (I just realized that Twilight had a good bit of this also. As a film, it is really sad that HP6 is closer to Twilight than anything else.)
- JK Rowling invented a huge number of interesting characters, and even the books had a hard time fitting them in. Now even substantial characters such as Neville Longbottom are reduced to cameos. Luna Lovegood comes off much better and has some of the funniest lines and deliveries. (Her name has that James Bond female sidekick quality, is there any Bond/Potter fanfic out there?)
- Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe both have a chance to chew the scenery, which they never had before. The audience greatly enjoyed both. Emma Watson (grrr) had less opportunity to shine, being reduced to crying, hitting Harry over the head and staring into the sunset. Her arch comments of previous films and great talent with magic are sorely missed. I can only hope that the next two films, based on the last book, will give her more space (since Ron Weasley is offstage for a good bit of time).
- Quidditch scenes are handled very well. 'nuf said.
- Helena Bonham Carter, another standout scene chewer as the psychotic Bellatrix Lestrange. She is given screen time instead of the character Rufus Scrimgeour. So the whole political subplot is lost, sadly.
- Alan Rickman has been one of the most reliable actors in the HP stable, but his delivery of the revelatory "I am the half blood Prince." line is a major disappointment. The counterspell to Sectumsempra was also supposed to sound like singing, if I recall the book correctly, but Rickman doesn't come close to that.
- The Muggle waitress in the opening subway sequence was a nice innovation. Just eye candy, but welcome nonetheless. (And yes, there is such a thing as product placement in an HP film!)
The big news, of course, is how different the denouement sequence is from the book. In one sense it is actually better, since it demands that Harry actively trust Dumbledore rather than just being a witness. But it has many other failings, including failing to be the "trash the Hogwarts set" that it should have been. This does not bode well for the final movie. But the real flaming mutual hatred of Harry and Snape does not come to the surface. That will greatly diminish the next films.
With an extra six months from the delayed release date, they could have done a lot. I'm disappointed if all they did was 12 minutes of IMAX 3D work.
The film is state of the art Hollywood, meaning high production values and absolutely formulaic. It will be a hit with its fan base.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
State of Play (BBC production) DVD review
I don't buy a lot of TV series on DVD (read, any). Dang, that's not true. On the back of a pleasant evening in the theater with State of Play, I bought the BBC mini-series on which it is based.
All I can say is, wow. A much better all around production. Six hours gives a lot of time to develop characters. The series is much more journalistic-procedural than the film, which is good. Excellent music. I love Kelly Macdonald's accent. Bill Nighy is amazing as usual.
Solid drama, worth your money over the film version. The film has some elements in its favor, such as the old media/new media tension, and Helen Mirren. That's not enough in the end. The original is better.
All I can say is, wow. A much better all around production. Six hours gives a lot of time to develop characters. The series is much more journalistic-procedural than the film, which is good. Excellent music. I love Kelly Macdonald's accent. Bill Nighy is amazing as usual.
Solid drama, worth your money over the film version. The film has some elements in its favor, such as the old media/new media tension, and Helen Mirren. That's not enough in the end. The original is better.
Angels and Demons - movie review
Last night I wandered into a showing of Angels and Demons, not expecting much. I was not disappointed.
Good points:
Good points:
- Large Hadron Collider - you sexy beast!
- some cool CGI
- Ayelet Zurer as strong woman scientist
- Rome
Bad points
- Science and Religion as non-overlapping magisteria
- Ayelet Zurer demoted to female sidekick of Tom Hanks
- Idiotic plot
I do like the combination of Illuminati and antimatter. The problem is that the whole film is built on the bait-and-switch. Don't filmakers as practiced as Ron Howard know that audiences hate this? This is an entirely separate point from a final plot twist. This is the kind of audience trickery of "and it was all a dream" variety. No excuse that Dan Brown makes the same mistake in his novel. The same mistake is not made in Da Vinci Code.
Oh, yes, and the physicist turns out to be a toxicology expert also, how convenient. And that car bomb? Completely obvious. And who set it BTW? It seems you've just traded one conspirator for another.
The film almost acheives the quality of a Woody Allen film about New York, where the city becomes a character. If only they had gone that direction!
If you follow the evo-creo wars, the editorializing on the proper relations of science and religion will all be sadly familiar. Yawn.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Capsule Reviews
Seen recently:
Inkheart - Good solid fantasy fare. What Brendan Fraser gets paid to do nowadays. Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent should have gotten more screen time, and their characters should have wound up together at the end, a missed opportunity IMHO. Some potential sequel material.
Twilight - Why did I bother? SFX pretty cheesy, but the target audience won't notice. A very good teen angst romantic vegetarian vampire movie. A little unclear if Edward, who vamped out in 1918, has actually killed people, not really motivated to find out.
Transporter 3 - my first view of the series. Anti-hero with a heart of gold Frank Martin is forced to break his rules, transport skanky Ukrainian teenager across Europe, a trip with curiously few difficulties at border crossings. Car/train sequences at the end are fun.
Body of Lies - Crowe and DiCaprio. Not as noir as a spy thriller should be, too much an actioner. Crowe is Mr Ugly American, action at a distance puppeteer. DiCaprio is the humint, constantly frustrated by his handler's ham handedness. Every bit of local color that DiCaprio befriends dies for their trouble, except the beautiful, saintly Iranian nurse (Golshifteh Farahani). If this was a real spy film, she would have bought it. Upbeat ending = torture is worth it? Maybe in the Bush Era. Actually, the torture in the film never works, but somehow that doesn't stop the people using it.
Inkheart - Good solid fantasy fare. What Brendan Fraser gets paid to do nowadays. Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent should have gotten more screen time, and their characters should have wound up together at the end, a missed opportunity IMHO. Some potential sequel material.
Twilight - Why did I bother? SFX pretty cheesy, but the target audience won't notice. A very good teen angst romantic vegetarian vampire movie. A little unclear if Edward, who vamped out in 1918, has actually killed people, not really motivated to find out.
Transporter 3 - my first view of the series. Anti-hero with a heart of gold Frank Martin is forced to break his rules, transport skanky Ukrainian teenager across Europe, a trip with curiously few difficulties at border crossings. Car/train sequences at the end are fun.
Body of Lies - Crowe and DiCaprio. Not as noir as a spy thriller should be, too much an actioner. Crowe is Mr Ugly American, action at a distance puppeteer. DiCaprio is the humint, constantly frustrated by his handler's ham handedness. Every bit of local color that DiCaprio befriends dies for their trouble, except the beautiful, saintly Iranian nurse (Golshifteh Farahani). If this was a real spy film, she would have bought it. Upbeat ending = torture is worth it? Maybe in the Bush Era. Actually, the torture in the film never works, but somehow that doesn't stop the people using it.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Star Trek movie review
Yes, I was going to go eventually, but my son Daniel deserves the credit for pestering me to go this weekend to an IMAX showing of Star Trek. It was an 11 PM show, so it was almost the full geek experience possible.
I agree with a lot of other people, this is definitely worth your popcorn money, and IMAX is the way to go.
Likes-
I agree with a lot of other people, this is definitely worth your popcorn money, and IMAX is the way to go.
Likes-
- mix of old and new
- plenty of homage to TOS (the original series, for the non-Trekker), to the level of some audio cues
- humor
- Zoe Saldana's way retro outfit
- Zoe in general
- Zoe in specific
- Zoe Zoe in a bar
- Zoe Zoe in a car
- Zoe and Green Eggs and Ham (or whatever that girl's name was)
Dislikes
- way too much lens flare
- naval tactics of the WWI era
- Romulan mining vessels that look like goose roadkill
- destroy two planets (Vulcan and Romulus) and stick us in an alternate universe
- Scotty's mascot - should get an award for Establishing Annoying Alien Sidekick Persona In the Fewest Scenes
- all the Star Wars homage, i.e. Ice Planet, there's always a bigger fish, Kirk as Han Solo punching bag, planet destroying ship, older Spock as Obi Wan
I don't think the big open sets made sense as the machinery spaces of the Enterprise. No one would build a military spaceship that way.
By far, the best line in the film is "Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes, and saved 800 lives."
I like the set up of the Kirk/Spock/Uhura triangle. As a reboot, I would have been happier if the creative team had just established that much in this film. The film crowds in all of the basic characters, and is a bit too hyperactive in doing so. In comparison, the Bond reboot is two films old and we still haven't met Moneypenny and Q.
Bottom line: Go!
Saturday, May 2, 2009
State of Play movie review
An enjoyable journalist-politician potboiler in which Ben Affleck does not suck. Helen Mirren and Russel Crowe are not overshadowed by the lack of suckage from Affleck. A good updating of the old newspaper flick tropes which I remember best from All the President's Men. Now mentioning that movie will bring up inevitable comparisons. To my mind one of the failures of State of Play is the willingness to kill people. We can't motivate viewers with anything less???
I suppose I'm going to have to watch the BBC TV mini-series now.
I suppose I'm going to have to watch the BBC TV mini-series now.
Wolverine movie review
I saw the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie last night, an early Friday night show. My showing was half full, later shows looked much more full.
I enjoyed the movie, and felt I got my money's worth of entertainment. The opening credits reminded me of the opening of Watchmen.
I am not a Marvel fanboy by any means. The anti-military tropes of the Cold War and the Viet Nam war are really really dated. Last year's Iron Man was a good attempt to move on from these.
Deadpool as a wiseass was better than the finale's Deadpool-I-Have-No-Mouth-And-I-Must-Scream.
Why oh why does Wolverine have to stop and monologue in New Orleans before offing Creed? Oh, I forgot, its a superhero movie.
Professor X showing up at the end was a bit creepy. 'Nuff said.
What do I want next from Marvel? A Magneto/Iron Man team up. The two best acted roles in the Marvel film universe. Its such a natural! But it has to include Mystique, because, well, do I have to explain?
I enjoyed the movie, and felt I got my money's worth of entertainment. The opening credits reminded me of the opening of Watchmen.
I am not a Marvel fanboy by any means. The anti-military tropes of the Cold War and the Viet Nam war are really really dated. Last year's Iron Man was a good attempt to move on from these.
Deadpool as a wiseass was better than the finale's Deadpool-I-Have-No-Mouth-And-I-Must-Scream.
Why oh why does Wolverine have to stop and monologue in New Orleans before offing Creed? Oh, I forgot, its a superhero movie.
Professor X showing up at the end was a bit creepy. 'Nuff said.
What do I want next from Marvel? A Magneto/Iron Man team up. The two best acted roles in the Marvel film universe. Its such a natural! But it has to include Mystique, because, well, do I have to explain?
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
FreeRisk Bait and Switch
Thanks to my friend John Turner, I just watched the video of a presentation about FreeRisk at O'Reilly's ETech conference.
The presentation listed a few problems in our current system of rating credit and investing in debt.
The presentation listed a few problems in our current system of rating credit and investing in debt.
- grade inflation in debt rating as NRSROs attract business with generous ratings
- funds forced by law to invest according to ratings from only a few agencies
- meaninglessness of the rating itself
- opacity of the rating model
- lack of diversity in modeling
They propose FreeRisk as a solution to the problems, which they have flipped into a set of requirements.
- accessible
- open
- diverse
- transparent
Cool, but how does that actually solve all of those problems identified earlier?
- Grade inflation - FreeRisk models are still opaque, so we don't know if a company has bought special preference or not.
- Forced acceptance - FreeRisk needs legislation to eliminate the privileged position of established NRSROs, and/or privilege some part of its own leaderboard as an NRSRO.
- Meaninglessness - Models are still opaque, so scores are still meaningless.
- Opacity - Continues.
- Diversity - With continued opacity, we have no clue whether models are diverse or not.
So on my analysis, FreeRisk isn't doing to well at solving the problems it wants to solve, mainly due to model opacity. Solving model opacity isn't easy.
The first problem is that the market will pay handsomely for good models, so there is a clear incentive to keeping them opaque. FreeRisk must be assuming the OSS model will transfer to finance, a big assumption.
The second problem is knowing where to stop in the desire for transparency. Let's take a simple model such as the Altman Z-Score as an example. I'm not happy just getting a real number in a certain range for an answer. I ask for the model. I get a formula using certain financial accounts and weights. Where did the weights come from? Why those accounts and not others? I need to know the design methodology of the model, and the database used to derive the parameters.
FreeRisk currently supports an API that allows for scoring based on a single period's data. Even the Piotroski Score needs two periods of data to work. More troubling, the simple Piotroski and Altman Z methods touted during the presentation are methods for evaluating the corporate entity, not the debt instrument. The debt instrument has to be evaluated for its terms and conditions. We are still very far away from having public T&C databases available in XBRL and Common Logic.
More troubling still is the belief that all credit scoring is model based. This is certainly not true today. It won't be true even when T&Cs are in XBRL and CL. There is still an element of judgement, of interviewing senior management, of reading the news on a company, that comes into play.
There is a lot of free floating moral outrage powering the FreeRisk presentation. But we should step back from that and think dispassionately about changes to our financial system. Should NRSROs really be expected to be aware of bankruptcy before it is announced? To whom do NRSROs owe a fiduciary obligation to force companies into bankruptcy by downgrading their debt? Do we really want debt market volatility similar to equity market volatility based on quicksilver changes in ratings?
Here are some of the things I took away, even if they were unsaid.
- we need finer grained ratings than the current scales provided
- we need to take named NRSROs out of legislation
- some funds should create softer cutoffs for investing
- the buy side should fund the NRSROs, not the issuers
The last is the most important. It removes one of the largest reasons for distortion of ratings. It aligns the interests of the NRSROs with the capital markets.
It would be great if the buy side funded the public company financial statement audit as well!
Monday, April 6, 2009
Bell, Book, and Candle
I watched Bell, Book, and Candle this weekend on DVD. I thought is was a fun film. I liked the interplay between Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart. The supporting cast was a lot of fun also.
You can see how this movie was an inspiration for Bewitched on TV, but it all seems to go back to Thorne Smith's Passionate Witch. I've got a copy on order!
You can see how this movie was an inspiration for Bewitched on TV, but it all seems to go back to Thorne Smith's Passionate Witch. I've got a copy on order!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Jean Renoir - Whirlpool of Fate
I took advantage recently of a Barnes and Noble sale on art films, and picked up a boxed set of Jean Renoir. The first one I've watched is his 1925 silent film, Whirlpool of Fate (English title). The film was interesting on a few levels. One was the view of contemporary French life. Horsedrawn barges cross the countryside, and the rich play with motorcars. The second level wsa the mechanics of the film-making. Renoir used many storytelling techniques, and there is a delightful special effects sequence in the middle of the film.
By modern standards, the final resolution might not seem very cathartic. The foul uncle of the damsel in distress is knocked into the river and swept off shaking his fist, and said damsel is taken along on a trip to Algeria by the family of her wealthy benefactors. But has she actually married the handsome young scion? To me it is unclear. Perhaps to contemporary audiences, her change of dress, and riding with the family in their carriage are sufficient clues that she is now a part of the family by marriage. To me, the fact that the film skips any explicit symbols of marriage, even a swinging church bell, leaves it ambiguous whether love has successfully bridged class differences.
While I greatly enjoyed the special effects sequence, for me the greatest enjoyment in the first few seconds of the film after the titles. Leaves flashing on the trees just out of sych with the film rate create this impressionistic shimmer on the screen that immediately transported me to another place and time, not only of story, but of story-telling.
By modern standards, the final resolution might not seem very cathartic. The foul uncle of the damsel in distress is knocked into the river and swept off shaking his fist, and said damsel is taken along on a trip to Algeria by the family of her wealthy benefactors. But has she actually married the handsome young scion? To me it is unclear. Perhaps to contemporary audiences, her change of dress, and riding with the family in their carriage are sufficient clues that she is now a part of the family by marriage. To me, the fact that the film skips any explicit symbols of marriage, even a swinging church bell, leaves it ambiguous whether love has successfully bridged class differences.
While I greatly enjoyed the special effects sequence, for me the greatest enjoyment in the first few seconds of the film after the titles. Leaves flashing on the trees just out of sych with the film rate create this impressionistic shimmer on the screen that immediately transported me to another place and time, not only of story, but of story-telling.
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