Director Gareth Edwards earned plenty of clout for making Rogue One, so I thought that an independently made sci-fi film made by him would be worth paying attention to. Unfortunately while this film has some great aesthetics and I do like how most of it takes place in Asia, the story is a horrid mess. It’s not really a science-fiction film at all as the AI here are effectively indistinguishable from humans so prejudice against them is just racism. That might sound profound but it doesn’t make sense at all as the film refuses to offer any explanation of how the AI here works. It’s an underwhelming, unsatisfying film and I’d attribute that to Edwards being responsible for the story himself.
Like so many others, I was enthralled by the ridiculously over-the-top trailer for this game. I’ve never played any of the Forza games before and sure it uses arcade physics but I can put up with that in exchange for an awesome presentation and hundreds of real world cars, right? Unfortunately no. The physics are so unrealistic that I quickly gave up on using a driving wheel and switched back to using a controller since that is clearly what the game was designed for. I also found the story missions to be asinine and nauseating. The racing events were enjoyable enough once I adapted to the simplified physics and avoided the fastest classes of cars but this was a game that never stopped irritating me.
I never played the video game as it was a PlayStation exclusive for so long but of course I couldn’t help but be aware of it given its success. I was hesitant to watch this series as I’m still feeling burned out about zombie stories but our cinephile friend recommended it and I heard that it’s completely faithful to the videogame so here we are. In the end, I have to concede that this is probably one of the most competently executed zombie story on television and boasts a large enough budget to look utterly fantastic. Yet it still is just a zombie story and there’s only so much they can do with only two lead characters. It’s entertaining, sure, but it’s not a show that I particularly love.
This experimental Czechoslovakian film is a real head-scratcher as I can barely understand a fraction of what it’s trying to do. The key may be that it was made when the country was still under Communist control and this level of obfuscation was necessary to get its anti-establishment message past the censors. The two female characters get up to all kinds of crazy antics but the one line they keep repeating is that nothing really matters suggesting a deep-rooted apathy to life. The visuals are striking certainly and there is plenty of creativity as it switches between types of shots and pair the movements of the two sisters with sound effects. Still this is just way too weird and incomprehensible for me.
Once again so much new stuff on health and biology but we do have a couple of papers in economics and sociology!
First, we have a simple and rather straightforward paper about a result that is perhaps obvious. A team of China-based researchers have published a paper claiming that antihistamines inhibits SARS-CoV-2 infection. The mechanism is that the histamine receptor H1 acts as an alternative receptor for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Antihistamines then competitively bind to HRH1, blocking the viral spike protein from gaining access. This discovery might seem less urgent now that the pandemic is under control and vaccines exist, but as virologists warn, SARS-CoV-2 could yet evolve and make a comeback and it’s always good to have more tools in our arsenal.
Next we have a paper whose very technical title both makes it difficult to understand and perhaps understates its significance. It describes using something they call bridge DNA to insert DNA at specific genomic target sites and allows programmable DNA excision and inversion. The specific details are far beyond my layman’s understanding but the upshot is that this comprises a new DNA editing tool far above the capabilities of the CRISPR/Cas 9 genetic scissors. Given how much of a difference CRISPR made, this is surely a Nobel Prize-level discovery and a harbinger of much accelerated development in the biosciences.
This next paper is sure to be contentious in a US election year and like all such papers which attempt to find statistical correlations in large masses of data, I would be cautious about its findings. Its objective is no less than to find correlations between intelligence and political beliefs, focusing on left-wing and liberal ideals. The result is the expected one that social liberalism and lower fondness for authoritarianism is correlated with higher intelligence, as measured by both IQ and educational attainment.
The next paper however is less flattering to liberals. There has been a lot of interest lately in studying the effects of potential Universal Basic Income schemes. This experiment compared 1,000 low-income individuals who were given a substantial amount of money unconditionally over three years with a control group. They found no significant effects on investments in human capital and no impact of quality of employment. Instead they found increases in time spent on leisure. Arguably this still represents a net increase in human welfare but it will be hard to politically sell as government policy.
Finally here’s a discovery that is both fun and made me wonder why no one ever noticed it before. In addition to many other elements that already make Komodo dragons so deadly, It seems that their teeth are coated with a layer of iron and that helps them to keep the edges sharp. This discovery was made when someone noticed orange pigment on the serrated edge of their teeth and analyzed the substance to find that it contains concentrated iron. It rather puzzles me why no one noticed this before and it is apparently the first time this kind of coating has been found in any animal. It all feels too much like science-fiction to be true but for now, I suppose it stands as an established scientific fact.
Obviously everyone knows Monty Python and the Holy Grail and I’ve watched plenty of clips from it here and there, but I’ve never seen the full thing. So when I realized that it’s on Netflix, I thought that it was time to fix that. It’s every bit as zany and outrageous as its reputation, yet unfortunately it does seem that it’s best appreciated as a series of skits. Some of the sequences take too long to get into and don’t land very well. The whole thing is just a bit too much. I’m amazed by the irreverence on display though and impressed that Terry Gilliam and his team basically learned how to direct in the process of making it.
Adapted from supernatural stories dating back to the 18th century, this period fantasy film is utterly traditional. It’s been a while since we’ve watched anything as old-fashioned as this and it’s satisfying how we now interpret these old stories differently in light of all that we’ve learned about art and cinema. This film is delightful and the execution is perfect, as it successfully evokes the supernatural with no special effects. More than that, it strikes me now that these stories were written to keep the peasants in their place and never attempt to rise above their station. It’s so obvious that I wondered why I never saw it before.
