I keep adding these old masterpieces out of a sense of duty but I have to admit that I don’t always enjoy actually watching them. This is the second film by Masaki Kobayashi on my list and I will say that it is easily one of the best samurai films I’ve ever seen. Seppuku itself is now part of the popular vernacular and so hardly alien. Yet the film still succeeds in making it feel viscerally real, dissecting the practice bit by bit with a critical eye. I loved the slow buildup of tension through the extensive dialogue, culminating in explosive violence that literally tramples on traditional notions of samurai honor. I’d expected something much more reverential but this one really doesn’t hold back its contempt for the samurai warrior ethos.
I’d skipped any posts about games for the past few months because I’ve been totally engrossed in this one and it took way longer than I’d expected to complete. I’ve since clocked up almost as many hours at this as Dirt Rally 2.0 and that’s a game I’ve been playing on and off for years! I’m kind of ashamed that it took me so long really as I kept doing things by hand for way too long and procrastinated over building large-scale infrastructure which would have saved me time over the long run. Still, this is very much the kind of game that everyone plays in their own way and by and large, I’m fairly happy with what I managed to build.
We watched Vietnamese director Trần Anh Hùng’s debut film some time ago and nothing since because they didn’t seem notable enough. Now here he is with an outstanding film that all the more surprising because of how French it is. This is nothing less than a pure love letter to classical French cuisine that is simply overflowing with passion for food. The term food porn is now part of vernacular but this film takes it to a new extreme and even weaves food deeply into the relationship between the two main characters. I’m not a foodie so I’m left bemused by its audacity but I have to admire the director’s total commitment and the excellence of the execution.
This film won a ton of critical acclaim and gave my wife and I plenty to talk about afterwards, so that’s always a good sign. I suspected at first that this dealt with prejudice against immigrants in Germany but it’s so much more than that. It details the impossibly complex dynamics that teachers in first world countries must navigate in the modern world with all parties, fellow teachers, students, parents, all having a say in everything that they do. In the end director İlker Çatak doesn’t seem to lead us to any firm conclusions but it is a captivating look into the German classroom and it asks good questions.
I pretty much love every film I’ve watched by Sidney Lumet so it was only a matter of time before I got around to this one, especially as it is about a case I’ve actually heard about. Real-life stories like this are hard to portray on film as they involve so many characters and take place over an extended period of time. So it’s very impressive how Lumet was able to distil a basic biography of the man, detail his relationships with women and fellow police officers, and cover his futile attempts to report police corruption over several years in little more than two hours. I don’t much care for films about police as a rule, nor do I have much sympathy for Frank Serpico, but this is an exceptional film on every level.
Still not that much in the way of science news. I expect scientists along with many others are still reeling and adapting to changes being instituted by the new Trump administration.
I’ve posted news about the GLP-1 weight loss drugs several times already but this one is about how they are already changing household consumption patterns. This study shows that households with at least one GLP-1 user are spending 6% less on groceries within six months of starting the drug. Furthermore the reductions are focused on lower purchases of calorie-dense, processed foods. Similar reductions are seen at fast-food chains and coffee shops. It’s no wonder that consumer goods companies are revamping their product lines and it would be fascinating to observe how far the changes go.
Next we have a paper that discusses the use of the transformer architecture which powers the LLMs popular today to predict human brain states. Specifically they mean scans of the brain using fMRI. Their claim is that using 21.6 seconds of data, they can use transformers to predict the next 5.04 seconds. It’s unclear what this can be used for but philosophically it’s eerie to consider that a simple algorithm can predict the future state of your brain, and hence your thoughts and actions, based purely on past data.
Finally here’s a paper that attempts to measure the rarity of truly exceptional people, or geniuses if you will. They focus on measuring three specific qualities, intelligence, conscientiousness and emotional stability with the intent of finding out how rare individuals who score high in all three measures are compared to the general population. It’s no surprise that these people truly are rare and even people who score above average on more than one of the variables are quite scarce. The suggestion is that organizations should place a higher priority on recruiting such exceptional talent.
I enjoyed the first Inside Out way back when it was released and it took a surprisingly long time for them to come out with this sequel. Arguably too long as we’ve long since lost any emotional connection to the characters and 2024 feels like a different era than 2015. The premise of Riley’s puberty ramping up all of her emotions and introducing a whole host new ones is a promising one. But it mostly feels like a reprise of the first film with the trite lesson that every part of Riley has a role to play. Even more disappointing is that it refuses to show any meanness whatsoever so it’s unconvincing and boringly low stakes throughout.
