Probing the ‘seven biggest problems facing science’
Vox writers Julia Belluz, Brad Plumer, and Brian Resnick compile the results of a survey they sent to scientists around the world, with the single question: ...
All posts tagged with movies
Link: New documentary on Brinkley
A new Kickstarter-funded documentary is coming out about Dr. John Brinkley, the Kansas quack best known for his goat gland operations during the Roaring Twen...
A look at public perception of Darwinism, circa 1930
British Pathé, the famous newsreel producer, has released its catalog of film content to YouTube. There’s not a rich backlog of film footage pertinent to pal...
Vermeer obscura
Fascinating article in the New York Times about a new film illustrating the concept of science in art and art in science: “Engineering His Own Vermeer”.
"Modern man"
On the subject of Homo erectus reconstructions, here’s a famous clip:
Phrenology, race and history
The movie Django Unchained includes a scene in which the antagonist (a rich, white, plantation owner) expounds on phrenology as a justification of slavery. J...
When Hollywood and paleoanthropology intersect
In a world, lost before time, lived an ancient race of tiny people… “‘Hobbit’ Lawyers Threaten ‘Age of the Hobbits’ Movie (Exclusive)”.
MacGuffin
The headline of this Guardian story really says it all: “Priceless Tibetan Buddha statue looted by Nazis was carved from meteorite”.
Neandertal anti-defamation files, 15
David Swindle, writing at PJ Media about George Lucas’ revelation that Han Solo would never have shot first.
Cheetah the chimpanzee, RIP
I’ve been unusually busy this holiday week, and haven’t had much time to sit down and write. A reader sent me this death notice for the longest-lived chimpan...
Special effects
The day has come when you can raise money for a movie by subscription, and here’s an interesting article profiling a project that’s trying to put old-style F...
Quote: Lord of the tweets
John Scalzi: “Lord of the Tweets”.
Bigfoot movies and pseudoscience TV
One of the people responsible for the Blair Witch Project is now making a movie about Sasquatch:
Absence of Chauvet
Some folks have asked me if I would write a review of Werner Herzog’s new Cave of Forgotten Dreams movie. Now that I’m back from Europe I would love to do it...
Naming your fictional species
How very strange. I was doing a routine Google lookup for “Taung” tonight, and I discovered that the top hit has nothing to do with the Taung fossil specimen...
Tomb raiders
Cracked.com features “8 Famous Fictional Archaeologists Who Suck At Their Job”.
Nosferatu
Does this word not sound like the midnight call of the Bird of Death?
"You could blue screen Ardi"
The Guardian is running an interview with Pauline Fowler, whose company Animated Extras has been involved in many film and television projects where apes and...
Creation review
John Wilkins saw the film Creation and enters a review, which I link because it’s thoughtful and balanced:
Starr
Ringo Starr turns 70 years old today. Many are reminiscing about some music group he was apparently part of. As for myself, I will forever treasure his geniu...
Mailbag: Quest for Fire
Night before last I was flipping channels and Quest For Fire was on one of the cable stations. I did not see it when it first came out but vaguely remember ...
Clearing the stack
Here are some links that have been piling up in my browser tabs this week:
Somebody else on "Avatar"
Mark in Spokane opines about Avatar:
Vampire odontology
Lawn Chair Anthropology: “Halloween special: Heterotopy, pleiotropy, and the origins of vampires”
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius
From a reader, a comparison:
Wolfram paleoanthropology
On the topic of web searching, I just thought I’d point out that when you search for “Homo erectus” on Wolfram Alpha, what you get is stats for the stupid Na...
Distribution rights
John Scalzi hits on a formula to get wide U.S. distribution for Creation (the producers are complaining that they can’t find a distributor):
"Creation" review
Eugenie Scott watched the Creation movie with NCSE, and posted a review.
"Many a forum would be greatly improved by the addition of some pedantic dorks."
That quote is Roger Ebert, in the comments of his post, “The longest thread evolves”. Turns out that when Ebert reviewed Ben Stein’s egregious Expelled last ...
Quote: Missing link, circa 1940
Some dialogue from “Too Many Husbands”, as Melvyn Douglas and Fred MacMurray get on each others’ nerves:
Flaws from far far away
John Scalzi snarks out the design flaws of science fiction movies this week. First Star Wars:
Hot Darwin action
Well, I watched the new trailer for the upcoming Darwin movie, Creation. On the one hand, there’s an awful lot of senseless (and anachronistic-sounding) stuf...
Sci-fi box office
I liked the short article by sci-fi author John Scalzi, “Scifi movies made money before Star Wars, too”:
Sketchbook
Today’s sketchbook:
"Homo erectus" becomes "National Lampoon's Stoned Age" on DVD
I commented on the movie version of the play, “Homo erectus,” when I heard about it a couple of years ago, in a timeless post, titled “[Tom] Arnold will play...
Darwin, emotion, and WALL-E
Jonah Lehrer went in to WALL-E (an enormously entertaining movie) and came out thinking of Darwin’s Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals:
Helicopter photographs hostile Amazonian natives
Am I the only one who noticed that the pictures of an “uncontacted” tribe in the Amazon were released the same week as the Indiana Jones movie, in which an u...
10,000 B[rainless] C[ontent]?
The movie, 10,000 B.C., blew away the competition last weekend, with an estimated $35.7 million in US box office receipts.
"[Tom] Arnold will play Rog, a gay caveman"
That’s the last line of this news item about the cast of the upcoming movie, “Homo Erectus: A Caveman Comedy”: