My boyfriend and I went to Redbox the other day, and because there was nothing else, we rented Cloverfield.
I was pleasantly surprised by the movie, which is another New-York-gets-destroyed-and-evacuated film.
The whole thing is filmed Blair Witch style, in a home movie camera. In the beginning, a young guy is assigned the task of filming a going away party for his friend, though he doesn't want to. He goes around filming people, focusing from time to time on a girl he thinks is hot, and all the peoples' conversations give the viewer just enough information to become sympathetic to the main characters. You almost forget catastrophe is coming, and then BOOM! an earthquake-like noise completely changes the tone of the film.
What was really cool was that the scenes cut in and out, mid-sentence, exactly as home movies are when you make them. And the character holding the video camera manages to maintain a funny, if annoying character throughout his filming, representing exactly that friend you have that doesn't understand when it's time to stop talking, because, for God's sake, people are dying.
The only thing that really pulls the movie back into the camp category is that some of the characters should have died right away instead of sustaining their unbelievable injuries. If you're impaled on a pole, my guess is you can't get up and walk around.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Before Sunrise
That is one of my favorite movies, because Julie Delpy's leading role is one of the most believable characters I've ever seen.
Most movies portray women as either virginal and aloof (Casablanca) or superhuman and independent (There's Something About Mary). In these movies, the men are the ones who make mistakes, who need help, and the women are angelic figures there to help out. The men are the characters who usually change.
In Before Sunrise, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke play equally complex characters, who commit equal mistakes in their past relationships, who are drawn to each other equally.
Julie Delpy is beautiful, of course, but not in the sense of the male ideal. She wears flat shoes, little make-up, and a plain dress, something much more attainable for the average young woman.
She buys Ethan Hawke a drink (women never pay in the movies, but it often happens in life) because he is traveling and only 23 years old, so he doesn't have much money. This is a true homage to Gen X reality.
It is partly due to the portrayal of this character that I find Richard Linklater, the director, so respectable. He paid women their due in this movie, creating a character that was neither a sexpot nor pathetic, but somewhere in between.
Most movies portray women as either virginal and aloof (Casablanca) or superhuman and independent (There's Something About Mary). In these movies, the men are the ones who make mistakes, who need help, and the women are angelic figures there to help out. The men are the characters who usually change.
In Before Sunrise, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke play equally complex characters, who commit equal mistakes in their past relationships, who are drawn to each other equally.
Julie Delpy is beautiful, of course, but not in the sense of the male ideal. She wears flat shoes, little make-up, and a plain dress, something much more attainable for the average young woman.
She buys Ethan Hawke a drink (women never pay in the movies, but it often happens in life) because he is traveling and only 23 years old, so he doesn't have much money. This is a true homage to Gen X reality.
It is partly due to the portrayal of this character that I find Richard Linklater, the director, so respectable. He paid women their due in this movie, creating a character that was neither a sexpot nor pathetic, but somewhere in between.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Meditation and evolution
I have a theory that meditation is an evolutionary step.
For one thing, with meditation, you are slowing down your brain and examining your actual process of thinking, which puts you in control of whatever impulses you were born with as a descendant of an ape. The more practiced you become with it, the less likely you are to give in to anger, and the more developed is your sense of compassion. If everyone meditated a lot, there might be no war, and war would become a brutish thing of the past.
For another, people who become very serious about meditation become monks and nuns, and often don't have children. This helps with the population problem. The more people who devote their time to meditation, the less resources are used.
Thirdly, in psychic theory and some Eastern religions that use meditation, beings float in and out of lifetimes, each time gaining more knowledge and compassion, with the ultimate goal of achieving Nirvana, or a state of heavenly perfection. At that point you don't have to come into a life to suffer anymore. If you subscribe to this theory then you are trying to be the best person you can be in this lifetime, ultimately bringing the human race a step towards positivity.
Finally, meditation puts you in touch with alternate states of consciousness, which may be necessary to develop further inventions and, I believe, to possibly communicate with alien forms of intelligent life. Meditation helps people have out of body experiences and get in touch with their sixth sense, which is nothing more than perception science is not yet able to define.
For one thing, with meditation, you are slowing down your brain and examining your actual process of thinking, which puts you in control of whatever impulses you were born with as a descendant of an ape. The more practiced you become with it, the less likely you are to give in to anger, and the more developed is your sense of compassion. If everyone meditated a lot, there might be no war, and war would become a brutish thing of the past.
For another, people who become very serious about meditation become monks and nuns, and often don't have children. This helps with the population problem. The more people who devote their time to meditation, the less resources are used.
Thirdly, in psychic theory and some Eastern religions that use meditation, beings float in and out of lifetimes, each time gaining more knowledge and compassion, with the ultimate goal of achieving Nirvana, or a state of heavenly perfection. At that point you don't have to come into a life to suffer anymore. If you subscribe to this theory then you are trying to be the best person you can be in this lifetime, ultimately bringing the human race a step towards positivity.
Finally, meditation puts you in touch with alternate states of consciousness, which may be necessary to develop further inventions and, I believe, to possibly communicate with alien forms of intelligent life. Meditation helps people have out of body experiences and get in touch with their sixth sense, which is nothing more than perception science is not yet able to define.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
The Hidden Messages in Water
The Hidden Messages in Water
I just picked up this book, the New York Times bestseller and featured in that movie What the Bleep? That movie left something to be desired, but the book is great.
A Japanese scientist took photos of water from mountain springs, and found that it formed crystals. Water from the tap forms no crystals.
He found that water exposed to the words "thank you" form lovely crystals, but water exposed to the word "Satan" forms an ugly, curdled pattern. Same for angry words.
His point is that because human beings are 70 percent water, we are directly affected on a physical level by what we say to each other.
A nice message about giving each other pats on the back.
I just picked up this book, the New York Times bestseller and featured in that movie What the Bleep? That movie left something to be desired, but the book is great.
A Japanese scientist took photos of water from mountain springs, and found that it formed crystals. Water from the tap forms no crystals.
He found that water exposed to the words "thank you" form lovely crystals, but water exposed to the word "Satan" forms an ugly, curdled pattern. Same for angry words.
His point is that because human beings are 70 percent water, we are directly affected on a physical level by what we say to each other.
A nice message about giving each other pats on the back.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Tesla
Tesla
I joined a blog group on Myspace called Tesla Tech.
At Burning Man in the year 2000, I saw a man use Tesla Technology by jumping up between a bolt of electricity between two Tesla coils, wearing a metal suit, and having the electricity hit him.
Apparently Tesla invented a source of free energy in the early part of the 20th century, which would not use nonrenewable resources. But his idea was shut down because nobody could make money off of it.
I'm having trouble believing that his idea actually works. Why are there no blueprints we can replicate? Can someone elaborate?
I joined a blog group on Myspace called Tesla Tech.
At Burning Man in the year 2000, I saw a man use Tesla Technology by jumping up between a bolt of electricity between two Tesla coils, wearing a metal suit, and having the electricity hit him.
Apparently Tesla invented a source of free energy in the early part of the 20th century, which would not use nonrenewable resources. But his idea was shut down because nobody could make money off of it.
I'm having trouble believing that his idea actually works. Why are there no blueprints we can replicate? Can someone elaborate?
Thursday, July 12, 2007
How water boils
A pot of water is held in the shape of a pot because the surface of the pot is solid and the water is liquid. Liquid takes the form of an empty solid.
The water begins almost entirely as liquid.
The temperature rises slowly, aggravating the H20 molecules to bounce around more quickly.
When any part of the water reaches 100 degrees Celsius, 212 degrees Fahrenheit, the hydrogen and oxygen atoms begin to split, and the substance becomes an expansive air. Tiny bubbles on the surface of the water, within the water, and between the surface of the water and the pot, appear.
The bubbles rise because they weigh less than the water, and the force of gravity doesn't pull on them as much. They are round because the air inside the bubbles is pushing out due to heat expansion, while the denser pressure of the water pushes in and holds its shape. The bubbles rise despite the water on top wanting to push down on them.
As the water continues to boil, more and more bubbles appear, rising to the surface and popping. The bubbles pop because the surface of the water on top of a bubble at the top of a boiling pot of water is much weaker than the heat expansion of the air inside, and the heat wins and pops the bubbles.
More and more bubbles appear, transferring the H20 into oxygen and hydrogen, until all the water is gone. I don't know where the hydrogen goes.
The water begins almost entirely as liquid.
The temperature rises slowly, aggravating the H20 molecules to bounce around more quickly.
When any part of the water reaches 100 degrees Celsius, 212 degrees Fahrenheit, the hydrogen and oxygen atoms begin to split, and the substance becomes an expansive air. Tiny bubbles on the surface of the water, within the water, and between the surface of the water and the pot, appear.
The bubbles rise because they weigh less than the water, and the force of gravity doesn't pull on them as much. They are round because the air inside the bubbles is pushing out due to heat expansion, while the denser pressure of the water pushes in and holds its shape. The bubbles rise despite the water on top wanting to push down on them.
As the water continues to boil, more and more bubbles appear, rising to the surface and popping. The bubbles pop because the surface of the water on top of a bubble at the top of a boiling pot of water is much weaker than the heat expansion of the air inside, and the heat wins and pops the bubbles.
More and more bubbles appear, transferring the H20 into oxygen and hydrogen, until all the water is gone. I don't know where the hydrogen goes.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Suze Orman, the famous financial expert, advocates giving away a little bit of money each month in order to keep the money flowing in.
It's not a bad idea, and I'm going to try doing it, maybe just $5 a month to various organizations. I'm leaning towards health care, and I recently made a donation to Planned Parenthood, the wonderful organization that combats unwanted pregnancy and STDs among the young, the poor and the uninsured.
I am also leaning towards the local mental health center, and Doctors Without Borders, an international organization that provides volunteer medical services.
I can't wait to see Sicko, the new Michael Moore film. There is a scene in which the audience finds out that the U.S. ranks 37th in the world for health care. That's about what it feels like.
It's these nonprofit organizations that save so many people who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford health care.
It's not a bad idea, and I'm going to try doing it, maybe just $5 a month to various organizations. I'm leaning towards health care, and I recently made a donation to Planned Parenthood, the wonderful organization that combats unwanted pregnancy and STDs among the young, the poor and the uninsured.
I am also leaning towards the local mental health center, and Doctors Without Borders, an international organization that provides volunteer medical services.
I can't wait to see Sicko, the new Michael Moore film. There is a scene in which the audience finds out that the U.S. ranks 37th in the world for health care. That's about what it feels like.
It's these nonprofit organizations that save so many people who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford health care.
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