It’s the last of this series for the year, so let’s get cracking.
The first one of these is more boosterism than anything else, but it’s hard not to feel especially enthused about space development after the successful comet landing last month. This Bloombergarticle talks about the successful initial test of NASA’s Orion spacecraft, the platform that should eventually carry humans back to the moon and beyond. Of course, this is just an unmanned test of the crew module and they don’t even have a rocket, but progress is progress.
The next article is more boosterism. It is in fact an advertorial from BWM but I found it fascinating enough to link to here (and not be paid for it). It talks about how modern car engineers spend a lot of time and effort on carefully designing what sound a car makes when you close its doors. Apparently consumers expect to hear different types of sounds depending on what type of car it is and are more influenced by the sound they hear than they are consciously aware of.
The next link goes to the Daily Mail (sorry about that) but it’s about real science. It’s about the discovery of the largest desert necropolis ever in Egypt. So far some 1,700 mummified corpses have been found but calculations based on the area of the burial grounds suggest that the mass cemetery holds over a million corpses. They are said to date from around 1,500 years ago and are common citizens instead of royalty. No doubt it will be an important archaeological resource for decades to come.
This one is great just for the reading pleasure alone. It is a New York Timesarticle about the Antikythera Mechanism, an astronomical calculator that dates back to around 100 BC. It can be considered a very early computer, though it is not programmable. It can be used to predict lunar and solar eclipses and calculate the positions the sun, the moon and the other planets in the solar system.
Finally everyone knows how bad the air pollution in China’s big cities is, but I enjoyed this Guardianarticle. It covers not only how the population has adapted to the situation over time but also some of the suggestions of how to deal with it, including outlandish proposals like large-scale vacuum cleaners to suck the smog out of the sky.
It seems strange, but animated features have a much higher hit-to-miss ratio on this blog so far than live-action films. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, Studio Ghibli’s longest feature to date with a running time of 137 minutes, not only reinforces this trend, it knocks it out of the park by easily being one of the best films I’ve seen over the course of the year.
Since I started writing a post about every film that I watch back in March of this year, I have only covered two documentaries. One of these had an agenda that I fundamentally disagree with, but had no reason to dispute its facts such as they were. The other one is essentially a feel-good movie that I liked, but whose less than perfect honesty I had misgivings about. In the case of Blackfish, I approve of its cause and agrees that it succeeds in advancing it, but also believe that it is profoundly unfair and misleading documentary.
There are many reasons why every film aficionado should watch The Big Sleep. It is regularly cited as one of the greatest films of all time, being included for example in Roger Ebert’s list of Great Movies. It always appears at or near the top of lists of the best noir films. It’s based on the best known novel by Raymond Chandler with scriptwriting assistance from no less a literary figure than William Faulkner. The pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall is one of the most famous romances that take place both on-screen and in real-life. In particular, Bacall’s death in August of this year elicited a renewed surge of interest in the films that they appeared in together.
Only Lovers Left Alive is easily summarized as Jim Jarmusch does vampires, with Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton playing the bloodsuckers. If having vampiric Loki isn’t enough for you, how about adding Mila Wasikowska, an extra delicious choice given her previous starring role in Park Chan-wook’s Stoker.
Even as big a comics nerd as I am, I had no idea that this was based on a Marvel superhero team. I would have if they had kept the original characters like the Silver Samurai and Sunfire, but after watching this, I’m glad that they changed things around and made it its own thing. I would have skipped this completely as just another Disney adventure cartoon and never known anything about it if it weren’t for excellent word-of-mouth.
Beyond Beauty is a Taiwanese documentary produced by renowned director Hou Hsiao-Hsien and directed by aerial photographer Chi Po-lin. It consists entirely of aerial shots of Taiwan from the vantage point of a helicopter. We’ve wanted to see it ever since we watched the trailer showing off the crystal clear images of the best scenery that the island has to offer. Given how small and how heavily industrialized the island is, the variety and grandeur of the natural landscape can’t help but surprise and impress.
