Lost in America (1985) ****

Albert Brooks' best film. His character is still the total schmuck but at least he gets his just desserts throughout the picture instead of just once at the end so he's easier to take. But did everybody really wear so many sweaters in the '80's?

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) ****

One of Woody's best blends of comedy and drama with a fine group of actors and his usual directorial flair.

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) **

Not played broadly enough to compensate for major casting errors, it still has a plethora of good one-liners some gorgeous art direction and cinematography to recommend.

1966 interview with William Shatner - Framework - Photos and Video - Visual Storytelling from the Los Angeles Times

The high point of his career, however, remains “The Intruder,” which is the original title of “I Hate Your Guts!” (it was also known for a while as “The Stranger”). Made on location under the direction of Roger Corman, best known for his stylish adaptions of Edgar Allan Poe, it is the boldest, most realistic depiction of racial injustice ever shown in American films and is based on an actual incident.

“It’s the best I’ve ever done,” says Shatner, who superbly portrays a satanic rabble-rouser who quickly reduces a small town on the eve of integration to a state of chaos.

“Our setting was the boot heel of Missouri. Discrimination was worse than in the Deep South because there the white southerners have taken a position – the lines of war were clearly marked. But here it was a fringe area and therefore more explosive.

“Literally, this movie was made at the risk of our lives. We even has escape plans. The state militia had to be called in when we shot scenes depicting the Ku Klux Klan bombing a Negro church.

The Woody Allen Interview (Which He Won't Read) | Hollywood Reporter

How has your wife, Soon-Yi, changed you?

Oh, well, one of the great experiences of my life has been my wife. She had a very, very difficult upbringing in Korea: She was an orphan on the streets, living out of trash cans and starving as a 6-year-old. And she was picked up and put in an orphanage. And so I've been able to really make her life better. I provided her with enormous opportunities, and she has sparked to them. She's educated herself and has tons of friends and children and got a college degree and went to graduate school, and she has traveled all over with me now. She's very sophisticated and has been to all the great capitals of Europe. She has just become a different person. So the contributions I've made to her life have given me more pleasure than all my films.

You're saying how you changed her. How has she changed you?

(Allen pauses.) Well, she's given me a lot of pleasure. I adore her, and she's given me a wonderful life. We've been married 20 years. And we were together for a few years before that. And she has given me the great years of my life, personally. She's a great companion and a great wife. She has given me a stable and wonderful home life and great companionship. I guess whenever you meet somebody and they're the right person for you, there is a great emotional contribution they make to your life.

But has she changed you in any way?

WTF dude? Are spouses SUPPOSED to change each other? Is that a thing?

U.S. Secret Bombing of Cambodia | rabble.ca

The initial operation was authorized by then President Richard Nixon, but without the knowledge or approval of U.S. Congress. The bombings became public knowledge in 1973, after which they were stopped.
The United States dropped upwards of 2.7 million tons of bombs on Cambodia, exceeding the amount it had dropped on Japan during WWII (including Hiroshima and Nagasaki) by almost a million tons. During this time, about 30 per cent of the country's population was internally displaced.

Laos: Thousands suffering from the deadly aftermath of US bomb campaign | World news | The Guardian

It is 50 years since the first US combat troops entered Vietnam in March 1965. During that notorious conflict, the US dropped more than 270 million bombs in Laos as part of a CIA-run, top-secret operation aimed at destroying the North Vietnamese supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh trail and wiping out its local communist allies.

One-third of the bombs failed to explode on impact and have since claimed an average of 500 victims a year, mainly children and farmers forced to work on their contaminated fields to sustain their families. Despite tens of millions of dollars spent, only 1% of Laos territory has been cleared so far.

Our Little Sister (2015) ***

A beautifully made film, guaranteed to lift your spirits and leave you with a warm and contented feeling with a bare minimum of schmaltz. Reminiscent of Ozu but doesn't achieve the gravitas of the master.

A Farewell to Ice by Peter Wadhams review – climate change writ large | Books | The Guardian

Wadhams puts this plainly. “There is no period in Earth’s history where the rate of rise of atmospheric CO2 is as great as it is today.” The asteroid that finished the dinosaurs blasted 4.5 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, “yet the CO2 rate rise [in the aftermath] was still an order of magnitude lower than the current rate”.

via J Barger

Paul McCartney Looks Back: The Rolling Stone Interview

Are there people you can turn to now for advice about a new song or album?
In music, no. I rely on the experience and knowledge of what would have happened if I'd brought it to the Beatles. That is the best gauge.

What about life in general?
I have some very good friends. Lorne Michaels and I are pretty close. I can always go for a drink with him – we can talk pretty genuinely. I have relatives, my brother and my wife. Nancy is very strong that way. But music, no. It's very difficult. You can't top John. And John couldn't top Paul.

Wait, what???

Wetherby (1985) **

An all star British cast including the incomparable and radiant Ms. Redgrave are told to fill in the blanks basically and try very hard to do so. They don't quite succeed.

TCAs: Mitch Hurwitz Talks Secret 'Arrested Development' Project - Hollywood Reporter

On Wednesday, Hurwitz said he's actually recut the entirety of the 15-episode fourth season (episodes ran more than 30 minutes, with one as long as 42 minutes) into — wait for it — 22 episodes with a running time of 22 minutes.

Um, what?

It's true. And right now that creator's cut of season four — which even features new Ron Howard narration — is just sitting on a shelf. There's a lot of moving parts when it comes to Arrested Development, and who knows if those 22 episodes will appear on Netflix or some 20th Century Fox showcase of some sorts. How and when this private project of Hurwitz's sees the light of day is probably more business-based than any of us can figure out.

The important thing is just this: We need to see those 22 episodes.

Star Trek Beyond (2016) **

Marked improvement over the previous outing with some inventive action and a lot more of the "classic trek" earnestness and humor. Still way too many illogical scenes, gaping plot holes, and where the heck is Dr. Carol Marcus?

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) *

Ben is not the problem in this turgid, pompous and silly waste of $250M. What hath Christopher Nolan wrought?

The Big Short (2015) **

Making a watchable film that stays remarkably faithful to its non-fiction source material is no small feat but it's not something I want to see again.

The Conjuring 2 (2016) **

Effective jump-scare flick with some distractingly bad '70's period cliches (I don't recall the plethora of awful sweaters and sideburns). Nice to see some underused talent get some screen time.

Rock the Kasbah (2015) *

Another movie that takes an actual non-white, non-male person's hard fought battle and turns it into a story about a white male's struggle to redeem himself. Reprehensible AND a waste of a top notch cast. Incredibly cliched script including, but not limited to, a hooker with a heart of gold.

The Rewrite (2014) **

Watchable thanks to an appealing and adept cast but the director keeps piling on the cliches to its detriment. Hugh Grant is actually quite good in this weak romcom.

Love & Friendship (2016) ***

A period piece/romcom impeccably cast and performed, well directed by Whit Stillman. Clever, subtle, beautiful.

Festival Drops Band Whose Drummer Supported Brock Turner

“I don’t think it’s fair to base the fate of the next ten + years of his life on the decision of a girl who doesn’t remember anything but the amount she drank to press charges against him,” Rasmussen wrote in a letter, obtained by The Cut, to Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky. “I am not blaming her directly for this, because that isn’t right. But where do we draw the line and stop worrying about being politically correct every second of the day and see that rape on campuses isn’t always because people are rapists.”

Yikes where does one even BEGIN with such statements? Basic logic doesn't stand a chance. We must remember though, she IS a drummer. ;-)

How Did Consciousness Evolve? - The Atlantic

Consider an unlikely thought experiment. If you could somehow attach an external speech mechanism to a crocodile, and the speech mechanism had access to the information in that attention schema in the crocodile’s wulst, that technology-assisted crocodile might report, “I’ve got something intangible inside me. It’s not an eyeball or a head or an arm. It exists without substance. It’s my mental possession of things. It moves around from one set of items to another. When that mysterious process in me grasps hold of something, it allows me to understand, to remember, and to respond.”

The crocodile would be wrong, of course. Covert attention isn’t intangible. It has a physical basis, but that physical basis lies in the microscopic details of neurons, synapses, and signals. The brain has no need to know those details. The attention schema is therefore strategically vague. It depicts covert attention in a physically incoherent way, as a non-physical essence. And this, according to the theory, is the origin of consciousness. We say we have consciousness because deep in the brain, something quite primitive is computing that semi-magical self-description. Alas crocodiles can’t really talk. But in this theory, they’re likely to have at least a simple form of an attention schema.

Dame Helen Mirren: 'I love no longer being a sex symbol'

‘I have absolutely no beauty regime,’ she says in that perfectly modulated, husky voice. ‘I sunbathe – I know I shouldn’t but I love sitting in the sun. I drink wine and occasionally I’ll drink to excess. I eat French fries. I’ve never managed to go to the gym for longer than two months. I always forget to take my vitamins.

‘I’ve done everything but I haven’t done too much of anything – I’ve never had a Coca-Cola, ever. Sometimes I use hotel body lotion as conditioner for my hair. I’m not particular. Life is too short and too precious.’

Roetemeyer, Joanne "Josie" - Kutis Funeral Home

Empty-handed I entered the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going — Two simple happenings
That got entangled.
-- Kozan Ichikyo's Death Poem

The Good Dinosaur (2015) *

Unsettling combination of photo-realistic background animation (they have NAILED oceans, rivers, all things aquatic by the way) and Flintstones-style dinosaurs (who have developed language, agriculture and animal husbandry) in a by-the-numbers story. Disappointing from Pixar.

Bowfinger (1999) **

Some laughs especially in the first half, but falters badly in the second. Disappointing for Steve Martin.

Your brain does not process information and it is not a computer | Aeon Essays

Misleading headlines notwithstanding, no one really has the slightest idea how the brain changes after we have learned to sing a song or recite a poem. But neither the song nor the poem has been ‘stored’ in it. The brain has simply changed in an orderly way that now allows us to sing the song or recite the poem under certain conditions. When called on to perform, neither the song nor the poem is in any sense ‘retrieved’ from anywhere in the brain, any more than my finger movements are ‘retrieved’ when I tap my finger on my desk. We simply sing or recite – no retrieval necessary.

Dear "Skeptics," Bash Homeopathy and Bigfoot Less, Mammograms and War More - Scientific American Blog Network

Over the past half-century, physicians and hospitals have introduced increasingly sophisticated, expensive tests. They assure us that early detection of disease will lead to better health.
But tests often do more harm than good. For every woman whose life is extended because a mammogram detected a tumor, up to 33 receive unnecessary treatment, including biopsies, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. For men diagnosed with prostate cancer after a PSA test, the ratio is 47 to one. Similar data are emerging on colonoscopies and other tests.

Too Late (2016) ****

A masterpiece of film making from start to finish. A stern rebuke to the fast edit, quick cut, extreme closeup directing style. Terrific cast, imaginative direction, excellent neo-noir beautifully shot on real film. An instant classic.

[The film was completed in 2015 but not released in theaters until 2016.]

Interview: Dennis Hauck on Taking on “Too Late”

Was there a fair amount of running through the scenes beforehand or would you run a lot of takes?

It was usually about 10 takes per scene. [Each scene being 20 minutes long!] We almost invariably ended up using the last take of the day, just because everyone was so dialed in and we knew the sun was going down, or the sun was coming up and just the whole crew knew, “Okay, this is our last chance to really knock it out of the park.” Three out of the five scenes were the last take of the day.

William Friedkin on Cannes Masterclass, ‘Disaster’ of ‘Sorcerer’ | Variety

Friedkin also reveals that at one point he had superstar Steve McQueen interested in the lead role, which eventually went to his “French Connection” star Roy Scheider. McQueen backed out of the project when Friedkin refused to give a producer credit to McQueen’s then-wife Ali MacGraw or shoot the film in the states, since he had already found beautiful locations around the world. “I was so stupid and so arrogant and so out of it that I did not realize at the time — which I do now — that a close-up of Steve McQueen is worth the most beautiful landscape in the world.”

To Catch a Thief (1955) **

Eminently enjoyable, but not in Hitch's top tier. Cary, Grace and La Côte d'Azur are well worth watching regardless.

Daisy Miller (1974) ****

Terrific showcase for Cybill Shepherd and she delivers a standout performance in a well directed period piece. Cast, photography, costumes, production design, it's all there and all top notch.

The Jungle Book (2016) **

Convincingly solves at least 2 problems with previous CGI heavy films: they got the eyes right, and the lighting (typically very dark) is not an issue. Hard to call this a "live action" film since everything but Mowgli is purportedly animated, but it is a technical marvel and enjoyable on that level alone. Everything else is mediocre owing to director Jon Favreau's constant eye on the bottom line approach to film making.

'Taxi Driver' Oral History: De Niro, Scorsese, Foster, Schrader Spill All on 40th Anniversary - Hollywood Reporter

PAUL SCHRADER (screenwriter) I had a series of things falling apart, a breakdown of my marriage, a dispute with the AFI, I lost my reviewing job. I didn't have any money and I took to drifting, more or less living in my car, drinking a lot, fantasizing. The Pussycat Theater in L.A. would be open all night long, and I'd go there to sleep. Between the drinking and the morbid thinking and the pornography, I went to the emergency room with a bleeding ulcer. I was about 27, and when I was in the hospital, I realized I hadn't spoken to anyone in almost a month. So that's when the metaphor of the taxi cab occurred to me — this metal coffin that moves through the city with this kid trapped in it who seems to be in the middle of society but is in fact all alone. I knew if I didn't write about this character I was going to start to become him — if I hadn't already.

Robert De Niro: 'Every day for 40 years someone has said: You talkin' to me?' | Film | The Guardian

Bernard Herrmann’s jazzy score for Taxi Driver is justly revered. Yet the legendary composer almost didn’t do the project, which would turn out to be his last. Producer Michael Phillips recalled a meeting with Herrmann, where the musician sneered: “I don’t do movies about cabbies.” Scorsese then met with Herrmann, convincing him to give Taxi Driver a shot. “[Herrmann] liked it,” Scorsese said of the script. “Especially when Travis poured peach brandy on his cereal in the morning. He really liked that.”

Scientists can now make lithium-ion batteries last a lifetime | Computerworld

"Mya was playing around, and she coated this whole thing with a very thin gel layer and started to cycle it," Penner, chair of UCI's chemistry department, said in a statement. "She discovered that just by using this gel, she could cycle it hundreds of thousands of times without losing any capacity."

"That was crazy," he added, "because these things typically die in dramatic fashion after 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 cycles at most."

Harry and Tonto (1974) **

A little too unrealistic for any sort of drama and not funny enough to be a comedy. Tries too hard to be quirky at times. Still some memorable scenes and the overall themes are worth exploring. Plus it's good to see evidence that not too terribly long ago it was possible for the elderly and less well off to actually live and work in our great cities.

Pee-wee's Big Holiday (2016) **

For fans only, but if you are this is a well done riff on the Pee-wee universe. Nicely cast and Reubens is a gifted performer even if he is definitely way too old for the part by now.

Best in Show (2000) ***

John Michael Higgins steals the show from a top notch comedy cast in Christopher Guest's second best mockumentary.

The sugar conspiracy | Ian Leslie | Society | The Guardian

One of the scientists who called for the retraction of Nina Teicholz’s BMJ article, who requested that our conversation be off the record, complained that the rise of social media has created a “problem of authority” for nutrition science. “Any voice, however mad, can gain ground,” he told me.

The problem of authority for nutrition "science" as it currently exists is not due to the internet but being horribly and disastrously wrong for such a long time. Hopefully this can change that.

A programming language for living cells | MIT News

Users of the new programming language, however, need no special knowledge of genetic engineering.
“You could be completely naive as to how any of it works. That’s what’s really different about this,” Voigt says. “You could be a student in high school and go onto the Web-based server and type out the program you want, and it spits back the DNA sequence.”

Marcia Clark’s Final Verdict on People v. O.J. -- Vulture

They asked for his testimony to be read back because he stated that when he pulled up to the driveway he noticed two cars in the driveway. And when Johnnie was cross-examining him Johnnie laughed and said, "Well, of course, that's not true, Arnelle was not home yet.” Alan Park was remembering the photos taken by the police after the fact. I asked him about that and he said, "Yeah that's true so there might have only been one car.” It wasn't really important to me how many cars were in the driveway. It wasn't important to anyone. But the jury said, Oh see. He said there were two cars in the driveway, so we can't trust anything he says. And if there could ever be a more clear illustration of the fact that a jury will buy exactly and only what they want to buy, that has to be it.

And if there could ever be a more clear illustration of the fact that a prosecutor will buy exactly and only what they want to buy, THAT has to be it. The prosecution bungled this case because they had too much faith in the blood evidence and never considered alternate defense tactics and ways to counter. Eyewitness testimony is typically least convincing, least accurate. I would've disregarded this testimony also and not because I had the verdict decided in advance.

Erik Bauersfeld, radio dramatist and ‘Admiral Ackbar’ voice, dies at 93 - SFGate

But he was best known in popular culture for voicing Ackbar in “Return of the Jedi” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” as well as being the voice for the “Return of the Jedi” character Bib Fortuna. Bauersfeld was a last-minute recruit for both roles; he said he provided lines for the characters in about 45 minutes with little direction from sound designer Ben Burtt.
“I went over, he showed me the picture of Admiral Ackbar, and I did it,” Bauersfeld told the Chronicle in 2012. “I saw the face, and I knew what he must sound like.”

‘Minimal’ cell raises stakes in race to harness synthetic life : Nature News & Comment

With nearly all of its nutrients supplied through growth media, syn3.0’s essential genes tend to be those involved in cellular chores such as making proteins, copying DNA and building cellular membranes. Astoundingly, Venter says that his team could not identify the function of 149 of the genes in syn3.0’s genome, many of which are found in other life forms, including humans. “We don’t know about a third of essential life, and we’re trying to sort that out now,” he says.

Elvis Costello 2016-03-30 San Francisco ****

There's still no denying the man's a great performer and drawing on his own vast songbook and a nicely designed selection of covers he makes a set list that tells a tale, comments on contemporary issues and characters and still manages to be funny, touching, poignant and thoroughly entertaining. Still waiting for the acoustic version of "Episode of Blonde" however. ;-)

The Interpretation of Screams - bookforum.com

George Lucas, in fact, later asked Lynch to direct Return of the Jedi. Of the roads not taken in film history, that was a highway Lynch was wise to avoid. He worked for hire on The Elephant Man and Dune before he fully abandoned notions of a conventional Hollywood career to make Blue Velvet in 1986. The Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin calls it “the last real earthquake to hit cinema.”

George Martin, Beatles Producer, Has Died | News | Pitchfork

He was a prolific producer beyond his work with the Beatles, helming records by Kate Bush, Jeff Beck, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Cilla Black, America, Billy J. Kramer, Cheap Trick, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Celine Dion, the Action, and solo efforts by Starr and Paul McCartney. He produced Elton John's 1997 single "Candle in the Wind," which is one of the best-selling songs of all time. He won several Grammy Awards over the years and was nominated for an Oscar for his work on A Hard Day's Night. He was knighted in 1996.

Tremendous talent. Still startling to listen to The Beatles' recordings and hear the precision and imagination in the arrangements. Perfect production.

The Visit (2015) *

An embarrassing attempt at a found footage fright flick by a director who should know better. Strained dialogue, extremely unfunny attempts at humor and a plot twist that's visible from Jupiter. Annoyingly bad.

AI & The Future Of Civilization | Edge.org

It's another part of the Copernican story, so to speak. We used to think Earth was the center of the universe. Now at least we think we're special because we have intelligence and nothing else does. I'm afraid the bad news is that that isn't a distinction. By the way, that lack of a distinction is pretty critical for thinking about the future of the human condition.

Terrence Malick Madness: 5 Most Bizarre Takeaways From 'Knight of Cups' On-Set Story

It wasn’t until three days before the shoot that the actor was told the scene was a party in the Hollywood Hills. And nothing more.

Malick had no script to provide his actors during filming, all they were given were cards with phrases meant to inspire them during filming.

“We’re all standing there and Malick hands out these pieces of paper to all of us,” Lennon said. “And the one he gave me said, ‘There’s no such thing as a fireproof wall.’ And I ask, ‘Is this something I’m supposed to say in the scene?’ and he said, ‘I don’t know.'”

George Kennedy, ‘Cool Hand Luke’ Actor, Dies at 91 - SFGate

Kennedy’s grandson Cory Schenkel told TMZ that Kennedy had been in failing health since the death of his wife Joan slightly more than a year ago, and had been in hospice care for a month.

"He was smiling... That's right. You know, that, that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end. Hell, if they didn't know it 'fore, they could tell right then that they weren't a-gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he's a natural-born world-shaker."

The Witch (2015) ***

Like Barry Lyndon, a mostly successful attempt to make a period film from the perspective of the time portrayed not the time it was made. Director Eggers does not, as yet, match the visual genius of Kubrick but his film is remarkably concise, direct, well acted and thought provoking.

Aeon: Consciousness Creep

But who’s to say machines don’t already have minds? What if they take unexpected forms, such as networks that have achieved a group-level consciousness? What if artificial intelligence is so unfamiliar that we have a hard time recognising it? Could our machines have become self-aware without our even knowing it? The huge obstacle to addressing such questions is that no one is really sure what consciousness is, let alone whether we’d know it if we saw it. In his 2012 book, Consciousness, the neuroscientist Christof Koch speculated that the web might have achieved sentience, and then posed the essential question: ‘By what signs shall we recognise its consciousness?’

The Zero Theorem (2013) ****

There's a lot to chew on in this Gilliam fantasy that isn't fully realized but comes tantalizingly close. Terrific supporting performances from Lucas Hedges and Mélanie Thierry.

Update (9/26/25): Second viewing makes it all clear. It's fully realized.

Anomalisa (2015) ****

Another brilliant Charlie Kaufman flick where nothing much happens and characters don't learn any life lessons or change. You know, like real life.

Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) **

Despite the nice work from its leads and the gorgeous Swiss countryside, it never seems to rise above its "A" soap opera story line to something meaningful to non-actors.

CONSCIOUSNESS IS A BIG SUITCASE | Edge.org

"We also use 'consciousness' for all sorts of ideas about what we are. Most of these are based on old myths, superstitions, philosophies, and other acquired collections of memes. We use these in part to prevent ourselves from trying to understand how we work-and in older times that was useful because that would have been such a hopeless quest. For example, I see that lamp in this room. That perception seems utterly simple to me-so direct and immediate that the process seems quite irreducible. You just look at it and see what it is. But today we know much more about what actually happens when you see a lamp. It involves processes in many parts of the brain, and in many billions of neurons. Whatever traces those processes leave, they're not available to the rest of you. Thus, the parts of you that might try to explain why and how you do what you do, do not have good data for doing that job. When you ask yourself how you recognize things, or how you chose the words you say, you have no way to directly find out. It's as though your seeing and speaking machines were located in some unobservable place. You can only observe their external behaviors, but you have no access to their interior. This is why, I think, we so like that idea that thinking takes place in a mental world, that is separate from the world that contains our bodies and similar 'real' things. That's why most people are 'dualists.' They've never been shown good alternatives."

RIP Marvin Minsky.

Hail, Caesar! (2016) **

A fine cast, impeccable production but disjointed and disappointing. Comes across as a series of sketches about studio-era Hollywood but there's no rug to tie it all together. Smart, but no heart.

Blue Crush (2002) **

Formulaic sports flick but the Hawaiian locales and appealing cast are worth it.

Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971) **

Almost HAS to be watched as a satire/black comedy, but aside from some cutesy character names ("Surcher" for the detective, "Tiger" for the football coach) it is played as a straight murder mystery/sex romp so it doesn't always work as entertainment. However as a time capsule of 1971 Hollywood it is a hoot and essential viewing.

Twelve Monkeys (1995) ***

Well put together sci-fi time travel flick stylishly directed by Terry Gilliam.

Economist's View: 'Paul Krugman, Bernie Sanders, and Medicare for All'

We do have to pay for the research, but the way we are now doing it is incredibly backward. It is like paying the firefighters when they show up at the burning house with our family inside. Of course we would pay them millions to save our family (if we had the money), but it is nutty to design a system that puts us in this situation.

How the Brain Perceives Color Could Help Explain Consciousness - The Atlantic

The human brain insists it has consciousness, with all the phenomenological mystery, because it constructs information to that effect. The brain is captive to the information it contains. It knows nothing else. This is why a delusional person can say with such confidence, “I’m a kangaroo rat. I know it’s true because, well, it’s true.” The consciousness we describe is non-physical, confusing, irreducible, and unexplainable, because that packet of information in the brain is incoherent. It’s a quick sketch.

What’s it a sketch of? The brain processes information. It focuses its processing resources on this or that chunk of data. That’s the complex, mechanistic act of a massive computer. The brain also describes this act to itself. That description, shaped by millions of years of evolution, weird and quirky and stripped of details, depicts a “me” and a state of subjective consciousness.

This is why we can’t explain how the brain produces consciousness. It’s like explaining how white light gets purified of all colors. The answer is, it doesn’t. Let me be as clear as possible: Consciousness doesn’t happen. It’s a mistaken construct.

Anomalisa Interview: Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson Speak

You never let David Thewlis’ Michael Stone off the hook for some really unhealthy behavior. He’s a fascinating trainwreck of a character. Were you ever tempted to make him more more instantly relatable or, dare I say, likable?

Kaufman: I would never be involved in any production that would try to make any character more likable. This goes back to the thing I said just previous to this. It’s the wrong thing to do. It’s thinking about the eventual audience and not the work that you’re doing. Not being true. We had zero conversations about making anyone likable. I think some people are more likable than other people in this movie. You say this is damning of Michael and I feel that’s your interpretation of it. I’m not saying you’re wrong. In fact, I’m saying you’re right. That’s your interpretation of it. That’s not the only interpretation of it. That’s an interpretation of it. I try, and Duke tries, to have things be layered enough that what you bring to it as a viewer is supported. Your interpretation is going to be supported. This movie doesn’t come to any conclusions about anything. It puts Michael through a weekend. From his point of view, you get to see that weekend.

Kroenke, the 'victim'? That's the story he's telling in LA : Sports

Q: You’ve developed real estate for something like 40 years; what made the site so attractive?

Kroenke: I’ve done this countless times, literally hundreds of deals. You just look for certain things. For example, (at) Hollywood Park, there’s a Target store and development right next door. Starbucks is there. These are people we’re very familiar with. We do developments with them. For me it’s starting to click.

Wow, the man is a freaking GENIUS!

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones exults in Rams relocation : Sports

Even as the Rams are leaving St. Louis, McNair said he thinks the city should try to lure another NFL team.

“I think they should keep trying,” McNair said. “Hopefully they can improve their situation and attract someone. I think the market is still there, but the stadium proposal just didn’t meet the standards that the Rams felt they could live with.”

And that standard was they wanted a new stadium for free. Again.

David Bowie - obituary - Telegraph

David Bowie, who has died of cancer a few days after turning 69, was a rock musician of rare originality and talent; he was also, variously, a producer, painter, film actor, art critic, the progenitor of bisexual chic, a family man and an astute multi-millionaire.

A Most Violent Year (2014) **

It's very well made, with fine performances from the well-cast ensemble but I never really cared about the story or characters and it felt a little tedious at times.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) **

Silly, preposterous and nonsensical reboot of Thunderdome this time in 3-D with some impressive CGI. Almost merits 3 stars due to a terrific Tom Hardy, superb photography and crisp editing. Well directed by eclectic George Miller with minimal closeups.

2015 In Review: Movies

**** Mistress America
*** A Very Murray Christmas
*** Ex Machina
*** Inside Out
*** Shaun The Sheep Movie
*** Trainwreck
** Crimson Peak
** Fifty Shades Of Grey
** Irrational Man
** Jupiter Ascending
** Spectre
** Star Wars: The Force Awakens
** Survivor
* Insidious: Chapter 3
* Maggie
* Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation

2015 In Review: Music

**** Corner Laughers, The - Matilda Effect
**** Crocodiles - Boys
**** Decemberists, The - Florasongs
**** Menace Beach - Ratworld
**** Rose McDowall - Cut With the Cake Knife
**** Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - The High Country
**** Talk In Tongues - Alone with a Friend
**** Twerps, The - Range Anxiety
**** Veruca Salt - ghost notes
*** Albert Hammond Jr. - Momentary Masters
*** All Dogs - Kicking Every Day
*** Belle and Sebastian - girls in peacetime want to dance
*** Colleen Green - i want to grow up
*** Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit
*** Dengue Fever - The Deepest Lake
*** Electric Light Orchestra - Alone In The Universe
*** Flyying Colours - ROYGBIV
*** Metric - pagans in vegas
*** Pure Bathing Culture - Pray For Rain
*** Regular Einstein - Chimp Haven
*** Richard Thompson - Still
*** Sleater-Kinney - no cities to love
*** Summer Fiction - himalaya
*** Surfer Blood - 1000 palms
*** Swervedriver - i wasn't born to lose you
*** Waxahatchee - Ivy Tripp
** Beach House - Depression Cherry
** Chills, The - Silver Bullets
** Decemberists, The - What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World
** Enya - Dark Sky Island
** Everything Everything - Get To Heaven
** Florence and The Machine - How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
** Julia Holter - Have You In My Wilderness
** Mew - +-
** Mikal Cronin - MCIII
** No Joy - More Faithful
** Orange Peels, The - Begin the Begone
** pinkshinyultrablast - everything else matters
** Potty Mouth - potty mouth
** Wilco - Star Wars
* Joe Jackson - Fast Forward
* Kathryn Calder - Kathryn Calder
* Squeeze - Cradle To The Grave
* the smoking trees - tst
* They Might Be Giants - Glean
* Torres - Sprinter

Mistress America (2015) ****

Delightful screwball-chamber comedy mashup. Greta Gerwig seems to have picked up some influences from a few of her other films and Baumbach directs with his usual economy and subtlety.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) **

Disappointing reboot of the original with two dull leads and a way too similar plot. The best thing about it is some superb CGI animation, particularly the Maz character.

Why People Are Confused About the Earliest Christian View of Resurrection of the Dead – TaborBlog

The evidence we have found in the Talpiot tombs is primary evidence of what the first Christians believed about resurrection faith. It is not theology, but it is firm archaeological testimony that allows us for the first time to reconstruct the full picture. The tomb evidence agrees completely with the teachings of both Jesus and Paul about the new spiritual body. The confusion has come in the gospels because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the empty tomb. There was an empty tomb—but it was the first tomb, the temporary one in which Joseph of Arimathea placed the corpse of Jesus until the Passover and Sabbath were past. The Talpiot Jesus tomb was not empty—the “Jesus son of Joseph” ossuary held his bones, and as we will see, we have been able to even do DNA tests on those remains. This is no threat to the original Christian resurrection faith, it is actually an affirmation of that faith. Paul knows nothing of that first empty tomb. He knows that Jesus died and was buried and on the third day he was raised up. He then appeared to his followers, not as a resuscitated corpse, but in Paul’s words, as a “life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) *

Tired cliches dragged out again and again to fill the gaps between stunt sequences. Any resemblance between the actions of characters in this film and actual human beings is purely coincidental.

Sorting out the Jesus Family: Mother, Fathers, Brothers and Sisters – TaborBlog

Given this information rather different but historically consistent picture begins to emerge. Jesus was born of an unknown father, but was not the son of Joseph. Joseph died without children, so according to Jewish law “Clophas” or “Alphaeus” became his “replacer,” and married his widow Mary, mother of Jesus. His firstborn son, James, the brother who succeeds Jesus, legally becomes known as the “son of Joseph” after his deceased brother in order to carry on his name. This would mean that Jesus had four half-brothers and at least two half-sisters, all born of his mother Mary but from a different father.

The science myths that will not die : Nature News & Comment

Yet in the early 2000s, scientists trying to build on the theory encountered bewildering results: mice genetically engineered to overproduce free radicals lived just as long as normal mice, and those engineered to overproduce antioxidants didn't live any longer than normal. It was the first of an onslaught of negative data, which initially proved difficult to publish. The free-radical theory “was like some sort of creature we were trying to kill. We kept firing bullets into it, and it just wouldn't die,” says David Gems at University College London, who started to publish his own negative results in 2003 (ref. 6). Then, one study in humans showed that antioxidant supplements prevent the health-promoting effects of exercise, and another associated them with higher mortality.

None of those results has slowed the global antioxidant market, which ranges from food and beverages to livestock feed additives. It is projected to grow from US$2.1 billion in 2013 to $3.1 billion in 2020. “It's a massive racket,” says Gems. “The reason the notion of oxidation and ageing hangs around is because it is perpetuated by people making money out of it.”

A Very Murray Christmas (2015) ***

Fine hommage to the Christmas TV specials of yesteryear with a threadbare plot but lots of fine songs and performances. Well shot with high production values and a wry and wistful but never maudlin script.

Mr. Turner (2014) **

Another well made biopic with some major disparaging fictional elements tossed in. Wonderful period detail and goes easy on any sort of push for a narrative arc. Suffers because the protagonist is such a lout.

The Live-Action Winnie the Pooh is Inspired by 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence'

In an interview with Collider, Perry discussed his inspirations for the film, including Steven Spielberg’s 2001 science-fiction drama:

There’s a lot inspired by the relationship between David and Teddy in AI. That’s not really a children’s film at all. Crushingly depressing. But the relationship between human and toy bear in that movie is pretty spot on. And Fantastic Mr. Fox is something I’ve been talking about and thinking about because it has a lot of characters and each one is pretty distinct. It’s a fun movie and it works for a four year old and for a thirty year old. But David and Teddy in AI is the relevant model. We’re looking at Toy Story a lot because that’s a thing about toys that are alive just as Pooh Bear and his friends are all stuffed animals.

I can tell you right now, this picture will be awful. This director has no idea of his own so he is mining film history to come up with something. Bad, bad sign.

Immoral Tales (1974) **

Explicit art house anthology from a definitely male gaze perspective. Watchable but fails to make a point.

The Beast (1975) **

When a film opens on a shot of a stallion in flagrante delicto you know you're in for something a little different. On that score, this flick does not disappoint. However, this black comedy/social diatribe is shocking at times but feels overlong/stretched out at just 92 minutes and ultimately IS disappointing.

The quantum source of space-time : Nature News & Comment

Einstein loathed the idea of entanglement, and famously derided it as “spooky action at a distance”. But it is central to quantum theory. And Van Raamsdonk, drawing on work by like-minded physicists going back more than a decade, argued for the ultimate irony — that, despite Einstein’s objections, entanglement might be the basis of geometry, and thus of Einstein’s geometric theory of gravity. “Space-time,” he says, “is just a geometrical picture of how stuff in the quantum system is entangled.”

Nuclear Waste Deep Storage Plans Approved - IEEE Spectrum

To provide safer and more permanent storage, Posiva proposes to bury electrically-welded iron-and-copper capsules 400 meters underground. The capsules would be surrounded by clay barriers and capped with rubble and cement. The facility, which would have a 6,500 metric ton capacity, could likely hold Finland and Sweden's projected future nuclear waste. But that capacity doesn’t come close to the volume required by larger nations such as the United States, which has over 70,000 metric tons of waste piled up, and produces an additional 2,200 tons a year.

Though tunneling has been going on for over a decade, Posiva had to wait for the Finnish government to approve its 2012 construction permit application before it could begin the trickier task of loading radioactive waste into its metal coffins. That task may begin as soon as 2023, continue for up to a century, and end when operators fill in the access tunnels with rubble and cap them off with cement. Posiva estimates that installation and operating costs for the first century will be around €3 billion (US $3.21 billion).

Spectre (2015) **

Gets 2 stars for a spectacular opening action sequence, the presence of Ms. Bellucci, Ms. Seydoux and Ms. Harris and some nice cinematography. The rest of the film sadly under-utilizes the aforementioned actresses and is content to be an undistinguished actioner.

Infection causes Cardinals great Lou Brock to lose part of leg : Sports

An infection relative to a diabetic condition has necessitated the amputation of Brock's left leg just below the knee. But the Brock family has sent a message that the Base Burglar is recovering well and, according to a source, Brock already is taking steps with a walker and will be fitted for a prosthetic device.

Brock was visited in the hospital last weekend by former teammate Bob Gibson, who was able to make Brock laugh with one of his remarks, and former manager Red Schoendienst, another Hall of Famer who also lifted Brock's morale.

Jeff Lynne Discusses the Rebirth of ELO and New Album, 'Alone in the Universe' | Guitar World

"But writing the words is like torture, really. Because I just love music so much, the words seem kind of unnecessary to me. I just like the tune and the chords. In fact, I never even listen to the words of a song for probably the first 10 listens. I don't even know what they are on some of the songs that are my favorites, because all I listen to is the melody and the chords and the bass line."

Crimson Peak (2015) **

It wears its many inspirations on its sleeve, has impeccable production design, costumes, technical prowess (the ghosts are especially well done) but everything is a bit too hyper-realized, obscuring the humanity. That and the violence is far too realistically rendered and detailed for the overall tone. Imagine the "cheek repair" scene in Pan's Labyrinth done 10 times.

Undernews: How the Manhattan Project all killed in St Louis as well - Linkis.com

By the mid 1940s, Mallinckrodt Chemical Works had run out of space to store the radioactive waste left behind, so in 1946 they began to ship the leftovers to a relatively underpopulated area north of St Louis, next to a creek by the name of Coldwater. It was here that approximately 250,000 barrels of radioactive material were dumped in shallow pits and exposed to the elements.
...
According to a 1990 article in the New York Times, the toxic waste was dumped secretly with the approval of the federal government.

<irony>Conspiracy theory! To believe this you would have to believe that this has remained a secret for 69 years, involving dozens of people across government and industry! We all know that cannot happen!</irony>

Fat: The New Health Paradigm - Credit Suisse

This report is based on more than 400 medical research papers and books written by academics and industry experts, as well as two in-house surveys of doctors, nutritionists and consumers. Eating cholesterol, for instance, has basically no impact on the level of cholesterol in the blood or on potential heart diseases, and the link between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular risk has not been proved. "But we found that 40 percent of nutritionists and 70 percent of general practitioners surveyed believe that eating cholesterol-rich foods has damaging cardiovascular effects. This is not true, according to the extensive research that has become available in recent years," said Giles Keating, Vice Chairman of Investment Strategy & Research and Deputy Global Chief Investment Officer for Private Banking & Wealth Management. A high intake of vegetable oils (containing omega-6 polyunsaturated fats) has not been proved to be as beneficial as earlier thought, and trans-fats have been shown to have negative effects on our health. In short, saturated fats and monounsaturated fats are not behind the high rates of obesity and metabolic syndrome in the US. The two leading culprits are the higher intakes of vegetable oils and the increase in carbohydrate consumption.

The Strangers in Your Brain - The New Yorker

If transposons were tampering with the DNA of every future neuron, then they were endowing each one with a slightly different genome. Even neurons that budded from the same mother would behave differently. This phenomenon, which is known as genetic mosaicism, doesn’t happen much in other tissues. The cilia that guard our lungs are genetically identical to the blood cells that circulate in our arteries, even though one looks like a sea anemone and the other looks like a cough drop. The two appear different only because they express various genes differently, in developmentally predetermined ways. Although neurons are similarly programmed, the Salk study suggested that transposons were giving them the ability to ad-lib. Several years after the initial discovery, members of Gage’s lab sequenced hundreds of individual neurons from human cadavers and found this to be true. Cells in the same brain are, indeed, genetically distinct from one another.

The tantalizing links between gut microbes and the brain : Nature News & Comment

In humans, the data are more limited. Researchers have drawn links between gastrointestinal pathology and psychiatric neurological conditions such as anxiety, depression, autism, schizophrenia and neurodegenerative disorders — but they are just links.

“In general, the problem of causality in microbiome studies is substantial,” says Rob Knight, a microbiologist at the University of California, San Diego. “It's very difficult to tell if microbial differences you see associated with diseases are causes or consequences.” There are many outstanding questions. Clues about the mechanisms by which gut bacteria might interact with the brain are starting to emerge, but no one knows how important these processes are in human development and health.

I would tend to think that the links would almost HAVE to be causal because the gut microbiome develops independently of us. Our genetic makeup has nothing to do with those organisms as far as I understand it. Wouldn't that imply that it is the microbiome influencing the body/brain?

St. Louis Landfill Fire Near Radioactive Waste | Al Jazeera America

A fire smoldering underneath a landfill north of St. Louis since 2010 could reach radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project in as little as three months, according to a report released by Missouri’s attorney general.

Much of the uranium used to make the first nuclear weapons was processed in downtown St. Louis, and the waste was moved around the region for decades. In 1973 a private company that bought some of the waste from the U.S. government illegally dumped it at the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, Missouri, a northern suburb of St. Louis.

Stellan Skarsgård: 'I've never gone to a shrink. Maybe I should' - Telegraph

He is not optimistic that Sweden will continue to punch above its weight culturally. "I'm happy to be in that little corner of the world that so much talent comes out of. And of course it’s the pay-off from having had very good education for everybody… And now, of course, this will change because for eight years we had one of David Cameron's best friends as the prime minister [Fredrik Reinfeldt], dismantling what was so successful. As with England as well, culture will be reduced to children from a wealthy background. And then you're f----- as a nation. Good luck, Sweden."

Heavenly Creatures (1994) **

Tries to show the inner workings of the adolescent mind as it conflates fantasy with reality in the course of an intense friendship and how it can spiral out of control. Admirable attempt, doesn't quite succeed.

What Neuroscience’s Newest ‘Genius’ Discovered -- Science of Us

You have fewer synapses in your brain now than a 2-year-old. That may sound like an insult, but it’s a scientific fact. We’re all born with heads full of lonely, isolated neurons. But as our baby brains are inundated with sensory information over the first two years of life, those neurons rapidly form connections, or synapses. A toddlers’ brain teems with more than 100 trillion of them. By the time that toddler becomes an adult, though, the brain will have pared back roughly half of them — synapses that are used frequently become stronger, while those that aren’t wither away.

This process of overproduction followed by winnowing allows the brain to shape itself to its environment. As neuroscientist David Eagleman writes, “You become who you are not because of what grows in your brain, but because of what’s removed.”

Hedge fund manager buys drug company, raises price of pill from $13.50 to $750 / Boing Boing

In August Shkreli bought a drug called Daraprim. It's been around for 62 years and is used to treat toxoplasmosis, a life-threatening parasitic infection. "Turing immediately raised the price to $750 a tablet from $13.50, bringing the annual cost of treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars," reports the New York Times...Watch Bloomberg's interview with Shkreli about his decision to raise the price. He admits it costs less than $1 a pill to manufacture Daraprim, yet insists at $750 a pill, "Daraprim is still underpriced relative to its peers."

Don't worry. The "market" will sort that all out. No need for any big government socialistic communistic death panels making our health care decisions for us. "Consumers" just need to shop around more.

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) ****

Thoroughly entertaining WWII action epic from David Lean featuring standout performances, photography and script. A little heavy-handed with the score at times, otherwise nearly flawless.

Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015) ***

Not up to the heights of other films from Aardman Animations but quite enjoyable with superb stop-motion work. No dialogue, just one sight gag after another. A disappointingly heavier reliance on potty humor unfortunately.

Book review: ‘Notes on the Death of Culture’ by Mario Vargas Llosa

Eliot too saw culture decaying around him and foresaw a time in which there would be no culture. This time, Vargas Llosa argues, is ours. Eliot has since been under attack for what his critics often describe as his elitist attitudes – as well as much else – and Vargas Llosa will probably also be tarred with the same brush for his pains.

There you go again. Every couple of years we get another round of "the death of culture" books/essays about how stupid we've all become because of the internet or comic books or movies or pop music or anything not in The Canon. It's the rantings of elites out of touch with current trends and pissed about it.