The Fabelmans (2022)

The last Steven Spielberg film I watched was Ready Player One and that was only because it was on a flight. The last one that I’d actually sought out to watch was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and we hated it. I was doubtful that I’d ever watch a Spielberg film again but then he made what is effectively his autobiography and of course it instantly becomes essential watching. At first, I was annoyed by how this film telegraphs every single thing that it wants to say so very obviously. Yet I found myself immersed all the same in the world of Spielberg’s childhood and its insights about the power of cinema. By the end, it’s impossible to deny the conclusion that this is a triumph both artistically and personally for Spielberg himself.

Continue reading The Fabelmans (2022)

Science News (September 2023)

Lots of cool stuff this month and I’m even cutting off breaking news that I’ll try to include next month.

  • I like to start off these posts with the news item that manages to hit the mainstream every month. This time it’s the news of a possible human population bottleneck about 900,000 years ago. This was achieved by projecting current human genetic variation backward in time to estimate past population sizes. This is understandably not a very reliable or precise technique but their estimate that the human population was reduced to around 1,300 breeding individuals at one point has enough shock value to made headlines around the world. Probably the more interesting discovery that the period coincides with a severe cooling phase in the planet’s climate, making it a salutary lesson on how critical it is for us to intelligently manage climate change today.
  • Using drugs to control obesity is the next big thing in medicine and there’s no doubting the impact that it could have on human health. This paper adds to the knowledge in that area, demonstrating how a specific group of neurons, GABRA5-positive neurons, in the lateral hypothalamic area of the brain help regulate food intake and thereby weight gain. By activating or suppressing these neurons, the researchers were able to control weight gain in model mice without affecting food intake. There’s understandably still a lot of reluctance against relying on drugs to control the obesity epidemic but I have no doubt that this will be mainstream soon.
  • We’re all familiar with the adage about opposites attracting and those mature enough should already know how untrue it is. This paper is a systematic review of peer-reviewed studies of male-female partners and their traits. The data shows that partners generally have high correlations in their personal traits whether in terms of political and religious attitudes, educational attainments and others, suggesting that such partnerships are more common and more stable.
  • Next here is a paper about intuition, specifically intuitive responses to problems that are wrong and yet are prove to be extremely difficult to correct. It discusses the bat and ball problem which involves calculating the costs of the two objects. The problem has an obvious, intuitive answer which is wrong and the correct answer must be arrived at through reflection. Despite increasingly severe warnings and even an explicit instruction that the obvious answer is wrong, many people still end up inputting the wrong answer.
  • Finally this paper discusses correlations between being patient and educational success. This by itself isn’t that revelatory but the technique the team used to determine patience seems novel. What they did was to mine data from social media to determine which types of interests are popular in different places and made their findings based on which interests are associated with the virtue of patience.

Destry Rides Again (1939)

I don’t think this Western is that well known today but back in the day it seemed to have been successful enough to spawn a remake and other adaptations. It stars James Stewart and certainly makes for a different kind of Western as he plays a lawman who tries his best to be a pacifist. Together with the musical sequences featuring Marlene Dietrich, that makes this interesting enough and entertaining enough to be worth watching in my book.

Continue reading Destry Rides Again (1939)

Vesper (2022)

This is an English language science-fiction film from Lithuania and I so love how different it is from work produced in the west. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world which is normal enough except that biotechnology dominates and all that is left of civilization depends on it. The plot is mostly solid with good acting by its mainly British cast and the visuals of weird synthetic organisms are appropriately otherworldly and fantastic. My only complaint is that the setting is very grim, yet the main heroine is way too hopeful and nice a person for what she must have lived through.

Continue reading Vesper (2022)

Assetto Corsa

So this is the famous sim racing game that everyone loves despite its age because it has a ton of mods covering every possible car and track. I’m still mainly interested in rally racing games but I thought I owed it to myself to at least gain a little experience on the more serious side of sim racing. Even getting this properly installed with the Content Manager that is practically required these days plus the basic set of mods that everyone recommends was quite an undertaking. As expected, I fairly terrible at this and don’t have the dedication to really get good, but it’s been fun enough for me.

Continue reading Assetto Corsa

No Bears (2022)

Banned from making films in Iran and barred from leaving the country, director Jafar Panahi is up to his usual tricks again. Here he purports to be remotely directing a film that takes place in Turkey while being holed up in a small village near the border. It’s a brilliant premise that is clearly inspired by his real life troubles but it would be silly to believe that any of this were actually real. Panahi’s films are usually rather mild in tone even as they are rebuking the Iranian authorities. This one therefore marks a notable departure with how grim and dark it is, reflecting the worsening outlook for freedom in the country.

Continue reading No Bears (2022)

Killer of Sheep (1978)

This feels more like a documentary or even an ethnographic study in video form than a film. Indeed this made was by director Charles Burnett as his masters’ thesis. It features music from some big names and since it never secured the rights to them until 2007, it wasn’t even legal to release this. It seems that many people still managed to watch this and in the intervening time, its reputation has grown until it is now considered one of the greatest films of all time. I’d say that this is certainly something special and the music it uses is absolutely essential to its identity. This is another one of those films that aim only to capture a specific place, time and people and it does nothing short of bringing them to life before your eyes.

Continue reading Killer of Sheep (1978)

The unexamined life is a life not worth living