.@neiltyson Three words: Cost Plus Contracts
— Billmon (@billmon1) November 11, 2014
.
Is Interstellar worth the bother of going out for? Spousal Unit & both like “smart” sf, but I have increasing degrees of prejudice against:
* “Use it up, go on to the next planet” mecha-machismo
* A Wrinkle in Time (Meg was a doormat; and creepy lil genius kid, ugh)
* Matthew McConaughey, the Human Blue Screen
How about Big Hero Six? Was that “pretty good for a Disney pic”, or actually, y’know, good?
Belafon
Big Hero 6 was good. You’ll root for the robot a lot, maybe cry once or twice, and enjoy the Stan Lee cameo.
The short at the beginning was also good.
Major Major Major Major
Just watch Snowpiercer on Netflix
chopper
the movie was beautiful to watch. much of the science is pretty solid, but there’s hand-waving and a number of plot holes in spite of that.
the black hole was beautifully rendered.
Alison
Okay, forgive me, but I just posted this below and now there’s a new thread and so yeah, anyway, repeating myself and sorry again for asking what is probably a stupid question
Can I get a printer that I can plug into my laptop with a USB cable only when I need to print something? We bought a new printer with wireless, but for some reason, even though it shows as on the network on my mom’s desktop, and it’s shared and all that, my laptop can’t find it. Our tech guy was here for over and hour yesterday trying to figure it out. Eventually I just told him to forget it and figured I could buy my own printer to keep in my room, and plug it into my laptop when I need it. That’s a thing that can be done, yeah?
(And please, don’t try to walk me through the ways to fix the wireless one, unless you are 1) an actual tech-support person and not just someone who uses computers, and 2) you live near me and will come over and do it yourself. Thank you drive through)
BR
Kill the Messenger. Also, check out Al Giordano on the backstory:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/5047/hollywood-s-gary-webb-movie-and-message-big-media-couldn-t-kill
NotMax
With movie prices (and rude and inconsiderate movie audiences) being what they are, is any movie worth going out for?
James Hare
My wife and I really enjoyed the film. She’s 8 months pregnant and the film is 169 minutes long. She didn’t get up to pee once, which I think is the longest she’s gone since about 4 months.
I think the basic gist of the film is that the problem causing humans to have to leave Earth is completely intractable. It’s also fairly clear that leaving is not exactly preferred policy for everyone. The film avoids quite a bit of the really easy and lazy sci-fi tropes. It’s very much a movie about choices and consequences of those choices.
If nothing else it’s a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend almost 3 hours of your life. I hate going to the movies (I worked in theaters as a teen and they’re just FOUL) but this was one of the extremely rare films that got me into the theater.
Major Major Major Major
@Alison: I’m an actual tech support person and also just replied below. Yes, they’re easy to buy and pretty cheap. It’s the networked ones that are expensive
Citizen_X
It’s much more like “go on to the next planet or die.”
You mean…he’s an actor? Shocking!
I liked it, but I may be prejudiced because I’m happy to finally see sf where crossing vast amounts of space by manipulating space and time actually means getting seriously displaced in time as well.
And Snowpiercer? Entertaining, at least when you could stop asking, “Why the fuck are they going around and around on a train again?”
srv
I argued with Neil almost 30 years ago that hatred for Pluto would be bad for science.
Small thinking for a guy studying galactic supercluster structures.
Alison
@Major Major Major Major: I saw! Thanks :) Yeah, I just need it for occasional things like return labels and coupons and crap. So I’ll look for a cheap one and hopefully it will actually work. No frigging idea why the wireless thing isn’t working here but if I keep futzing with it, I’m gonna want to throw it out the window eventually.
dmsilev
@Alison: Sure, USB printers are pretty cheap. Alternatively, if you don’t need to print very often, would it be workable to just save a PDF or whatever on your laptop and then print it from your mom’s desktop?
Roger Moore
@Alison:
Are you sure that the wireless one doesn’t already have a USB port? I think most of them do; mine certainly does. It might be worth seeing if you can just plug in to the existing printer by USB when you need it.
Alison
@dmsilev: That’s what I’ve been doing but it’s annoying as hell, and I don’t always necessarily want her to see what I’m printing.
@Roger Moore: Hm, true. It probably does. I should try that first, thanks for the suggestion. :)
Amir Khalid
And I’d just posted this in the last open thread:
Yes, go see Interstellar. It demands much of the viewer, but will reward close attention and maybe even a second viewing. If you read and understood A Brief History of Time and/or other books like it, you’ll be better able to follow the science (and the story) in Interstellar. Matthew McConaughey is one of the best things about the movie.
I wouldn’t compare it with Big Hero 6, they’re not the same kind of movie at all. I’ve heard that it’s a good movie too.
Hawes
I haven’t seen St.Vincent yet, but Bill Murray playing a cad and Melissa McCarthy playing a stressed single mom sounds like a winner.
SteveLCo
I went to see Interstellar, I thought it stunk.
raven
Anyone watch Sonic Highway? I’m at that age that I didn’t listen to Cheap Trick, much less the Foo Fighters, but the first installment from Chicago was great.
JPL
@Amir Khalid: Wow that sounds entertaining. teehee
Actually it sound like work .
skerry
@raven: I’m loving Sonic Highway. I did listen to Cheap Trick and some of Foo Fighters. The Chicago episode was good, but I really liked the DC one. I haven’t seen the others yet, I’m a bit behind on my TV watching.
schrodinger's cat
@Alison: I have the first printer on this list, it can be wired through a USB cable or via a network, also prints duplex. I love it. It comes with a CD, just follow the instructions and you will be all set.
Yeggman
I highly recommend seeing it in 70mm IMax if possible (see the movie’s website for a list of theaters). I think it’s ending its non-digital projection run very soon.
I’m sure it looks good in digital too but 70mm IMax looks absolutely amazing and unfortunately this may be the last opportunity to see it in action.
Allen
My wife said it was one of the best movies she’s ever seen. I’m not sure I’m quite ready to go that far–and not quite sure if this quite matches up to my previous favorite Nolan movie, Inception–but it’s definitely in my top 20 at least.
It’s definitely not mecha-machismo, and at one point early in the movie, I had tears streaming down both cheeks. The movie critic whose opinion most closely hews to mine, Richard Roeper, gave it an A+ and called it one of the most beautiful movies he’s ever seen (and undoubtedly, he’s probably seen a lot more than most of us).
raven
@skerry: My brother just told me about it last night. He is an LA kid and he loved all that punk stuff that I missed. McKinley Morganfield is one of my fav’s so I really liked that part.
ArchTeryx
Interstellar is a three-act play. Act One, on Earth, and Act Two, in space, were immensely worth watching. Seeing the rendering of the black hole binary system all by itself was worth it. (Yes, there was a star near the hole that was the source of all that glowing brightness, though oddly nobody mentions it).
Matt Damon also plays completely, utterly against type, also worth going to see.
The third act, without being too spoilery, is like a love song to A Wrinkle In Time minus the Christian references. You kept expecting Mrs. Whatsit to show up and explain to Cooper exactly what a tesseract was and how one gets OUT of one once they’ve gotten in….
Poopyman
Two words for Billmon: Fixed Price. It’s what all the smart Federal agencies are coming back to.
@JPL: I’d ask if you mean “effort” or that that was what you do 9-5, but there’s your nym ….
schrodinger's cat
I haven’t seen Interstellar but I hear that the physics is all screwed up. I find Nolan a tad overrated, while both Inception and The Dark Knight weren’t awful, I felt the movies did not live up to the hype.
dmsilev
@schrodinger’s cat: I have that same model as well, and have been very happy with it. On a wireless network for me, though I did hook it up to the computer via USB during setup (that’s the easiest way of giving the printer the password to my WiFi).
dmsilev
@schrodinger’s cat: Haven’t seen it either, though at least the visual appearance of the black hole is supposed to be good. Good as in “science advisor Kip Thorne is writing a technical paper on the results of the renderings”.
(Thorne is a world-class expert on black holes and gravity in general)
Mike in NC
Planning to see Interstellar on IMAX this week while the wife is in NoVA seeing friends.
Snowpiercer was unwatchable crap.
Amir Khalid
@schrodinger’s cat:
Kip Thorne has been involved with the movie from the beginning. He co-wrote the original treatment, and has written a book, The Science of Interstellar. I’m looking for it.
Alison
@schrodinger’s cat: Well, that’s a little more than I’d want to spend for something I’ll only use occasionally, but thanks :)
ArchTeryx
You got to love Neil deGrasse Tyson’s take on it:
“They explore a planet near a supermassive black hole. Personally, I’d stay as far the hell away from black holes as I can.”
It turns out that yes, the physics allows a planet near a black hole to survive. It would experience gravity tides and relativistic effects as extreme as depicted in the movie. Unfortunately, said planet would also be bombarded with an amazing number of rads of hard and soft X-rays emitted from the black hole. Water may exist on such a planet, but sure as hell no life would last long there.
Amir Khalid
Is anyone planning to see the Stephen Hawking biopic, starring Eddie Redmayne? Kip Thorne appears as a character in that one. Apparently Stephen Hawking likes it and says it’s broadly true.
Elizabelle
I like Matthew McConaughey; convert after “Dallas Buyers Club.” He was brilliant.
I did not like Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Walked out near the end. Loved Memento.
Suspect Interstellar is worth a view, although hear it is hard to hear.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid:
I liked the previews for the Hawking pic. Eddie Redmayne looks superb for the role. Going to see that one.
ETA: I would also like to see “The Homesman.” Tommy Lee Jones directed and acts, also Hillary Swank and Meryl Streep. Looks way good. The American West, without the myths.
Howard Beale IV
@Alison: Is you printer an ink-jet? If it is, you might as well throw it out unless you plan on printing out a page every week or so to prevent the nozzles from seizing up. I bought a Samsung color Laser Printer 5 years ago, for $100-still on the original toner and drum, still works like a champ.
Belafon
@schrodinger’s cat: The only printers I will buy are Brother printers. They work nearly flawlessly, require almost no setup, and brother supplies drivers for Linux and Windows.
Belafon
@Alison: Take a look at the Brother printers at a local office supply store/Best Buy. You should be able to find what you want.
Alison
@Howard Beale IV: Well, we;ve always had inkjets and never had that problem.
JPL
@Poopyman: True. I was thinking about the time I went to see a movie that got great reviews but because I was tired, fell asleep.
JPL
@Amir Khalid: I’d love to meet Stephen Hawking, so yes.
chopper
@ArchTeryx:
I found the idea of a supermassive black hole just sitting there with a handful of planets orbiting it kinda goofy.
And yes, the x-ray flux from the accretion disc would have been insane. Especially when they got close to the hole (tho I did like the attempt to extract energy from the hole’s ergosphere, even if it would never have worked in real life).
Amir Khalid
@JPL:
I’ve never met Hawking, but I once got within a few feet of him. He wears Doc Martens shoes.
raven
We watched part 3 of Olive Kitterage but decided to wait on 4.
Jeffro
Not only have we heard great things about BIG HERO 6 from family & friends w/ kids, but I do have to thank Disney: the value of ALPHA FLIGHT #17 went from $.25 to $100 in a week. Hel-LO eBay!
JPL
So has anyone besides me fallen asleep while viewing a movie on the big screen? I’ll admit to two and they were close to forty years apart. The first was Cries and Whispers but that was because I went to a eleven o’clock showing. The second was The Hours.
JPL
@Amir Khalid: Nice! That would actually be close enough for me. He’s just amazing.
Elizabelle
NYTimes re The Homesman, directed by Tommy Lee Jones.
PaulW
Big Hero 6 is goooooooooood. The plot is pretty straight-forward and the characters adhere to well-worn tropes. If you’re an adult you can see about 80 percent of what’s gonna happen. But if you’re a kid – which this movie is aimed at – everything will look fresh and mind-blowing and heartbreaking (even adults will cry at the appointed Pixar-approved tearjerker moments).
What puts Big Hero 6 in the OH YEAH category is the humor, the love of science as a force for good, and quite possibly the best fart joke ever. Sorry Mel Brooks, but Blazing Saddles with the cowboys and beans, nah, that’s Second Place now.
raven
@Elizabelle: Ever see Meek’s Cutoff?
PaulW
@JPL:
So has anyone besides me fallen asleep while viewing a movie on the big screen?
I have never fallen asleep during a movie but there were times during 3000 Miles to Graceland I wanted to reach through the screen and punch the sh-t out of the idiots who screwed up what should have been a decent Elvis Vegas Heist flick.
Elizabelle
@raven: I need to see “Meek’s Cutoff.” On my list.
ETA: Remind me who directed?
VFX Lurker
@NotMax:
I bought tickets to watch Guardians of the Galaxy seven times in the theater…so it happens.
@Anne Laurie – if you can only see one movie this month, see Big Hero 6. I did shed tears at the end of Interstellar, and I think it also scores points for showing what our world might look like after global warming wreaks havoc (food shortages, dust storms, lower standard of living, lower opportunity). It is a good, thoughtful film.
However, Big Hero 6 is also a good, thoughtful film, and it’s way, way funnier.
raven
@Elizabelle: It’s very slow. It is shot in 4:3 aspect ratio to give the sense of how the women saw the world with those bonnets on.
El Cid
Saw both, enjoyed both, different reasons.
Amir Khalid
@PaulW:
Me, during The Hobbit Part 2. That movie’s full of padding.
raven
@Elizabelle: Kelly Reichardt
ArchTeryx
@chopper: One of the fundamental properties of black holes is that they have very close to the exact same gravity field as their parent stars – just compressed into a much smaller space. The planets that survived the star’s collapse would just merrily orbit along, though their temperature, atmosphere, and makeup might change. Having only ONE star, instead of two, baking a close-in planet might make it more Goldilocks in temperature, allowing liquid water to condense.
But just water and the right temp all by themselves are insufficient for life to form or be sustainable. You have to, you know, not be in the middle of a cosmic-scale supercollider. Visiting such a planet would be a lethally foolish mistake if you’re looking for a habitable world!
raven
@Elizabelle: Michelle Williams
Ripley
I’ll see Interstellar on the big screen for the visuals, but I prefer my SF to be more subtle than epic. Any takers for the same, try:
Under The Skin, my 2014 best film, so far; brace yourself – difficult to watch at times.
Beyond The Black Rainbow from a few years ago; kind of a corrupted inner-space meltdown.
Enemy from 2013 – very odd happenings, and a final scene with an off-the-scales creep factor.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: @dmsilev: I too have read about Thorne’s involvement
@PaulW: Yes when I was a child it was some interminably long night show of some Bollywood movie. It was boring and I was 10.
JPL
@schrodinger’s cat: At least it was close to forty years between my movies. The second movie, I mentioned it to an adult son and his concern was whether or not my friends knew.
schrodinger's cat
@JPL: I usually love spy movies but the Good Shepherd was boring as hell, and Matt Damon looks and acts the same whether is 20 or 60. I could hardly keep my eyes open but I watched it on DVD not on the big screen.
chopper
@ArchTeryx:
According to the movie it’s a super massive black hole. Not merely some stellar remnant (not that that would make much of a difference-the planets would not have survived their parent star going supernova).
Apparently the black hole of Interstellar is in the range of 100 million solar masses. So again, the idea that such an object is just sitting around with a couple of planets in orbit is kind of goofy.
Suffern ACE
O.K. I went to see both Interstellar and Big Hero 6 last weekend (someday I’ll link to the movie review blog I’m building, but its not ready for prime time). Anyway, I’d still probably go to see Nightcrawler or Force Majeure or Birdman, but if you must pick between the two, I’d see Interstellar. It is sweeping and adult.
If you want to see an animated feature that’s in theaters now, I’d choose Book of Life over Big Hero 6. As far as films go that deal with the formation of super hero teams, I didn’t really get moved by the formation of the Big Hero team. With the exception of the robot, everyone is just kind of the same nerd, they all get along, and there isn’t any conflict between the characters. It just wasn’t entertaining for me.
Steve in the ATL
@raven: I watched the Nashville episode last week. It was the highlight of my trip to Cleveland. Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle, plus calling out bro country for the garbage that it is.
schrodinger's cat
Is the wormhole of Interstellar near Bajor by any chance?
dance around in your bones
@Hawes: Believe me, it is. You will laugh, you will cry.
At least I did.
Suffern ACE
Actually the best thing about all four movies I saw this weekend was the friend pork belly schnitzel sandwich with pickled tomatoes that I picked up after “The Way He Looks”.
scottinnj
Interstellar is visually striking, though it was a bit too Inception-like toward the end. I also kept thinking back to Contact which also had MM so I kept expecting to see Jodie Foster show up.
I much preferred Birdman, a bit insufferable in a few spots but Michael Keaton and Ed Norton were fantastic in their roles. And Emma Stone is criminally underused in Hollywood! The cinemetography – which basically makes it seem like one long tracking shot – really gave it a crisp pace rather than being a gimmick.
Steve from Antioch
Don’t know about Intersetllar. Can’t wait to see it in 70mm Imax: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/in-a-digital-age-interstellar-unspools-on-film-stock/
Nightcrawler and Birdman are both worth seeing.
hilts
I’ve read some reviews of Interstellar in which critics complain that the musical score almost drowns out several lines of dialogue in a few scenes.
Did anyone who saw the film experience this problem?
According to Wikipedia, theoretical physicist Kip Thorne was a scientific consultant, so I would expect that the scientific premises were depicted in a fairly plausible fashion.
RSA
@JPL:
Midnight showing of Creature from the Black Lagoon, in 3D, wearing red-green stereo glasses. I was just too tired…
Jerry
Interstellar made me sad. Sad that I didn’t see Gravity on the big screen.
Mike E
my daughter and I made up half of the audience for the showing of Ponyo that we attended.
I could have been totally nude when I saw Frost Nixon; I had that theater completely to my self.
beth
@JPL: Fell asleep during Out Of Africa. It was a beautifully filmed movie but I swear it felt like it went on for six hours.
I once fell asleep on the shoulder of a friend’s date during a Broadway show. I knew he should marry her because she was sweet enough not to wake me (I’d been pulling double shifts that week.)
Belafon
@Mike E: My family’s favorite part of Ponyo is how the mom drives.
@Suffern ACE: I kind of liked the fact that Big Hero 6 didn’t take half the movie to put the team together. And there was some conflict. Not every team requires each person to be at the throats of the others until they realize that the bad guy is worse.
Jay
Here’s me, a longtime Balloon Juice reader & lurker, doing some standup. It’s “B” work by my standards, but maybe some of y’all will like it better. Bash it! Circulate it! Do what you wish with it! (I cuss, so use headphones if you have to.)
Also, skip “Interstellar,” but watch Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married” and tell me she ISN’T a boss. Go on. I dare you.
Suffern ACE
@hilts: I didnt have that problem, but the soundtrack was a little noticeable at times. At least they went with a pipe organ rather than the large choir when they wanted to go big. There wasn’t any Ode to Carmina Nevsky Requiem moments. Yay!
Another Holocene Human
@NotMax: I’m going to see Annie over the holidays. Been waiting for MONTHS.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
Kip Thorne has won bets with Stephen Hawking about nitty gritty details of General Relativity.
@Amir Khalid:
I served him lunch once. When I was a student, I worked as a waiter at the Caltech faculty club (The Athenaeum) for extra cash. Hawking used to visit every summer, and one day he and his entourage were assigned to my area. He’s a challenging man to serve properly.
Valdivia
Obama’s climate change deal with China for the win. Take that GOP
James Hare
@ArchTeryx: I have to give Matt Damon credit — that role had to be exceptionally hard to play.
cckids
@Alison: I’m not sure if someone else has answered yet, but I do this with our HP F4580 (pretty basic, cheap printer) all the time. It has wireless, but has always been glitchy, & I just cannot deal with screwing around with the wireless. I just plug in the USB, let the laptop “recognize” the printer & print.
Hope that helps.
JustRuss
@Jerry: Gravity is probably the last movie I’ve seen in a theater, and it was quite a ride.
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
Hey, Matthew McConaughey is making a comeback. I had problems with True Detective, but he was amazingly good. And he did an interesting cameo in The Wolf of Wall Street.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Less a comeback, I think, than a decision that he had made enough money in forgettable Rom-Coms that he could start pushing the edge and not worry if the movie didn’t make money or please people.
Suzanne
I never liked Matthew McConaughey until True Detective. Oh. My. God. He was so unbelievably hot in that. His acting, and Harrelson’s as well, was just great.
I thought Snowpiercer was better than average, but the scene where they freeze the guy’s arm and then shatter it off made me so freaked out that I literally threw up in my mouth.
Suzanne
Mr. Suzanne took the Spawns to see Big Hero 6, and they all liked it. He and I were going to see Interstellar last weekend, but didn’t want to deal with the crowds right away. Maybe this weekend.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: I have no idea what Snowpiercer is and no real desire to pursue it, but thanks for the spoiler alert.
Violet
I can’t remember the last film I saw in a theater. Maybe “Quartet”? That was awhile ago.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Pretty good sci-fi flick. Worth seeing. What I just described came very early in the film. Good movie, but very upsetting and claustrophobic in tone.
cckids
@JPL:
Yep, once. Reds, while I was in college. I’d been pulling some late hours, so that might be it. I’ve never bothered to try it again.
rikyrah
@Valdivia:
Go, Mr. President.
Suzanne
@JPL: I fell asleep watching Wayne’s World once in my college’s theater (this was a few years after it came out and I had seen it many times). And I was totally, totally stoned.
ruemara
Big Hero 6 is fantastic, but it has the worst theme song I’ve heard in a Disney pic. Interstellar tries way too hard to tug at heart strings but is a fantastic visual movie.
I was stuck watching hockey at the pizza parlor my friends went to afterwards. Now I want to go back and restart the animation I was doing.
JimV
Just saw “Fury” on “$5 Tuesday” at Regal Cinema. There were two or three scenes I would have done without (others may disagree) but the tank-fighting scenes seemed excellent to me. Well worth the $5. Wouldn’t have been as amazing on a small screen or normal speakers.
Not gonna see “Interstellar”. Sounds like a waste of worm-hole technology to me. I want a galactic civilization with my wormholes. And what, we’re going to ferry people off Earth a spaceshipload at a time, at a cost of billions per person?
Xantar
@Valdivia:
First the net neutrality then the climate change deal with China. And then we’ve got executive action on immigration reform coming up.
Man, what a lame duck.
dance around in your bones
I just want to say that St. Vincent with Bill Murray and a fantastic child actor Jaeden Lieberher and Melissa McCarthy as a stressed divorced mom is thoroughly enjoyable.
Bill Murray is stellar, as usual, and you may laugh/cry( or cringe at the sentimentality if such is your disposition)
but I completely enjoyed it. Many funny scenes, and some sad ones.
Redshift
I just got back from seeing Interstellar, and I really liked it. I wanted to see the black hole rendering on the big screen, but I looked it more than I thought I might. Lots of good hard SF stuff, as well as some hand-waving and ignoring some inconvenient facts, but way less than in most SF movies. Also some great nods to 2001.
I would definitely recommend seeing it on the big screen if you’re a space fan; the scenes of space travel near planets are gorgeous.
AxelFoley
Hilarious vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DCDYSJwwE4
I know the original vid highlighted out a real problem women face, but this vid was funny as shit.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, “comeback” and “decision” are not mutually exclusive. And a lot of the former is perception on the part of the audience.
Omnes Omnibus
@AxelFoley: Clever idea, but I couldn’t really get past the real ones. It might really be a “Too soon?”
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: How about a difference in direction? For some reason MM decided to go to an entirely different type of work (and do a damned good job of it).
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Obviously. Part of the whole concept of a comeback is to reëvaluate and perhaps try a different approach.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: We might just have a disagreement over the meaning of comeback.
ETA: How could I not go there?
askew
@cckids:
The Right Stuff when I was a kid. That movie was so long it had an intermission during it and man was it boring to a kid.
Also, the Solaris remake with George Clooney. I managed to stay awake long enough to see George’s naked ass and then I was out until the lights came on. I am not sure who makes more boring movies Soderbergh or Mann.
Steeplejack
@dance around in your bones:
I thought St. Vincent was pretty good, but I had a few issues. It was a little formulaic—oddball loner vs. the pedestrian world. The kid was too articulate for his age. And the script had a whiff of being written by some hipster douchebag who hadn’t really spent any time in lower-class Brooklyn but was just riffing on how he thought it would be cool for it to be.
And didn’t you think at first that Bill Murray was supposed to be visiting his mother in the assisted-living facility? There was some bad casting there.
Omnes Omnibus
@askew: The Right Stuff? Seriously?
dance around in your bones
@Steeplejack:
Yes, I did, and I said as much to my girlfriend who was sitting next to me, She whispered “no, it’s his wife!” which made sense as he was playing older than his real age.
I liked it! Yeah, the kid was wiser than his age, but he wasn’t FROM Brooklyn and he was going through some tough shit.
Bill Murray was both a curmudgeon and a sentimentalist, and I liked that. One doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Formulaic? Ok, but just go see it and decide for yourselves, other Juicers. Said with loving kindness, Steep :)
Steeplejack
@dance around in your bones:
I said I liked it, but it had a few barnacles on the hull that dragged it down for me.
Anne Laurie
@scottinnj:
Contact, when it first came out on videotape, was the first time I saw MM. What made the biggest impression on me was that Jody Foster, working hard to stitch the hole-y plot together, actually had more luck convincing me that she was ‘seeing’ the blue-screen stuff than she did making me believe MM was a scientist, or a hunk, or worth watching in anything else. Talk about your sad cheesy mannequins…
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
I fell asleep during “The Triumph of the Will” when they showed it to us in film school. All of that endless marching …
I had a roommate who would reliably fall asleep in ANY movie. Seriously, she fell asleep during the original “Total Recall.” Things were blowing up onscreen and there she was, snoring away.
patrick II
@dance around in your bones:
I just saw St. Vincent today and enjoyed it immensely. It was formulaic and the characters were stock. However, they were interesting and fun anyway because of the acting and clever dialogue. Bill Murray did another twist on his sad, troubled person with hidden intelligence and ironic humor and underlying decency that keeps him from going insane. Melissa McCarthy was dialed back and as good as I’ve ever seen her — actually a nuanced performance. The boy and Naomi Watts were both great.
If you are tired of special effects movies and want to see interesting people instead of car chases, this movie is the cure.
NotMax
@JPL
Fell sound asleep during The Phantom Menace.
Which Is also the last film I saw in a movie theater.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Also, you know I have to ask: what do you mean by “pretty good for a Disney pic”? Do you mean “pretty good for an animated movie”? Because, frankly, there isn’t an animation studio making better films than Disney right now.
And before you say “Pixar,” you have to tell me with a straight face that you thought Cars 2 was a great film, better by far than Wreck-It Ralph or Frozen.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Studio Ghibli?
Randy P
@ArchTeryx: The black hole thing bugged me for a number of reasons. The main one was, “a livable planet needs a source of heat, how did planets orbiting a black hole get judged to be earth-like”? A good sci-fi author I suppose would come up with something plausible involving the hard X-rays and gammas that actually come off the event horizon being absorbed by some other body and re-emitted as visible light and heat.
But I was sold on this movie when I read that Kip Thorne was the science advisor and they’d worked very hard to make sure at least SOME of the science was right. One of my pet peeves is that even on the most expensive films, Hollywood can’t seem to find the spare change to pay a science advisor to get the most rudimentary stuff right. But Nolan hired one of the best physicists in the business.
That plus “father-daughter story” (I’m a sucker for that stuff as the dad of two daughters) plus finding out Christopher Nolan was the director of Memento were enough for me.
It was an enjoyable film. I liked it a lot, and so did my wife, who HATED “Inception” (I kind of liked it).
There were some time paradoxes that kind of gnawed at me and which I couldn’t resolve to my own satisfaction, but that’s the nature of any film which uses time as a device, and I can forgive a lot of paradox in the interest of a good story premise.
Fair Economist
I thought Interstellar was a really good movie. What really stuck out for me is that they had *intense* character conflict without anybody being a cartoon villain or blithering idiot. It’s nice, and sadly rare, to see a movie where the characters aren’t cardboard.
dance around in your bones
@patrick II:
Exactly my thought, as I am so very tired of crashBOOM! movies. There was a promo for HaloXX!! (whatever) that made me cringe. It’s not enough that my grandsons play these shoot-em-up games where nobody really dies (your character ‘re-spawns’) but now they are going to be clamoring to see this Halo movie. (Sorry, gamers)
To be fair, I doubt they would stay awake for St. Vincent :)
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Alison:
Your wireless printer SHOULD have a USB port on it. Ours is in the back.
It also SHOULD have an email address that you can send documents to for printing.
chopper
@Randy P:
i think the radiation from the accretion disc is supposed to be the source of light for the planetary system. ignoring the intense x-rays, i’m not exactly sure that would work, but who knows. apparently the schwartzchild radius of the black hole is roughly an astronomical unit so the accretion disc is quite large. the nature of the radiation would vary quite a bit – the stuff moving toward you (the left side of the disc if the hole is spinning to the right) would be heavily blue shifted and the stuff moving away would be heavily red shifted. that wasn’t rendered in the film but it would be quite a sight.
a black hole of that magnitude would be a galactic core. normally the center of a galaxy like ours is a hot mess and i doubt any planets near the core would last long at all, much less be habitable. i didn’t notice much in terms of other stars around the black hole in Interstellar, so maybe it’s a remnant of a dead galaxy. in which case the black hole is almost as old as the universe and where the fuck did these planets come from and why are they habitable?
imonlylurking
The last movie I saw in a theatre was John Wick. I needed something cathartic, and man did it fit the bill! I need to go see it again while it is still on the big screen. I would like to see Interstellar, even with the plot holes. Maybe this weekend I can drag my roommate to it.
chopper
another thing about Interstellar that i wondered: if the guys at nasa needed data from a black hole to reconcile quantum theory with relativity in order to understand and control gravity, why not just study the shit out of the wormhole that’s right in front of you? similar physics and in order to be stable it would have to be held open by a shell of exotic matter which would provide a wealth of information. i mean, negative mass! come on, that’s super useful if you’re studying gravitation.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Pixar increasingly is Disney; they’re still different units within the company, but ever since the merger they’ve been cross-pollinating to a degree that I think their house styles are converging.
I liked Big Hero 6, though I think it wasn’t first-tier as Disney and Pixar movies go. The super-team members other than Hiro and Baymax seemed underdeveloped, though they were all likeable. I loved the bit when we find out how Fred manages to hang out with these people all the time, and also the remarkably shocking moment when Hiro crosses a line and the others immediately pull him back. Also, the line that was a joke just for computer-graphics geeks (or people with some familiarity with Disney’s org chart).
Matt McIrvin
…Also, I do think Big Hero 6 is going to rake in a ton of money; the Veteran’s Day matinees were selling out and the house was packed with kids and parents. The local movie theater was renovating their big concession stand, and there were long lines for the small temporary one they had set up to one side of the lobby.
BrianM
My wife, in high school at the time, fell asleep during the original theatrical release of “Star Wars”. I love her dearly.
Cermet
@chopper: Similar to my issue about the worm hole . (As I’ve read it is the negative energy that anchors it to real space (easier to understand than negative mass which really has no meaning but negative energy can be defined and exists.)) Yet, such negative energy would require massive positive energy to create for the worm hole to exist – enough to power our current world many, many times over so, as you point out, exactly why leave our solar system with that to study? Also, understanding that aspect would be the key to all space travel.
One minor point, a worm hole allows traveling into the current observer’s own past – that creates paradoxes that destroy any movies claim to scientific accuracy. Also, while I understand why they are forced to visit the black hole against all logic/science, it is really stupid so, here again, bad Hollywood writing wins.
chopper
@Cermet:
‘negative energy’ in this case corresponds to a ‘negative mass’. you would need such ‘negative matter’ to stabilize the wormhole.
cray-cray.
and it’s not that ‘negative mass’ has no meaning. it doesn’t violate the laws of physics, it’s just goofy.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@NotMax:
So “The Wind Rises” was a better film than “Frozen”?
@Matt McIrvin:
Actually, Pixar and Disney still have quite a lot of organizational separation, by design. Plus Disney has their own rendering and processing programs (like Hyperion) that they developed independently of Pixar’s.
I think that, until after he died, people outside of Pixar didn’t understand how vital Steve Jobs was to the studio. He didn’t have creative input, but he was someone who stood outside of the day-to-day insanity of production who could help Ed and John gain perspective and assist them with problem-solving. I think the organization as a whole had to go through some grieving and internal growing pains to figure out how to continue without him. They’re also having the eternal problem of figuring out who makes a good animation director — as Disney found out, too, your top animators are not necessarily going to be great directors. It’s not the same skill set.
Not Adding Much to the Community
@JPL: I dozed off for an hour during my second viewing of “The Fellowship of the Rings;” 2013’s remake of “Conan the Barbarian” had me dozing off, too. Such a bad movie.
Not Adding Much to the Community
@hilts: I had that problem. In more than one scene, the score/sound effects drown out the dialog. -Crucial- dialog.
chopper
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
i understand the point you’re trying to make, but picking what you consider the worst recent film from pixar or ghibli to compare to the best recent film from disney is kinda disingenuous.
i mean, how about we compare “the tale of the princess kaguya” to Planes? looks like Ghibli wins that one. or maybe let’s compare it to Brave? okay, point goes to pixar.
disney’s been kicking out some good films but it still has its share of stinkers recently.
dance around in your bones
@Not Adding Much to the Community: I admit I fell asleep during the 2nd Fellowship movies.Too much war, bloodshed, etc. Booooring!
I might be thinking of the wrong movie, because for me the books were the real deal. Read them on the Hippie trail, where they were passed along like sacred relics :)
brantl
Sure, if you can do the following: Get the right side of the aisle to admit that it’s broken, get the right side of the aisle to admit that it’s vital that we fix it, and get the right side of the aisle to admit that it will take money to do it, and actually commit the money. Loads of luck with any of that.
mainmati
@Amir Khalid: I agree. The movie was a tad too long but it was well-thought out. On NPR’s “Studio 360”, co-writer and director Nolan admitted that he was influenced by Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001” Space Odyssey” and the influences are, of course, very obvious. Also, the last scene’s environment is a direct reference to “Rendezvous with Rama” (don’t want to do a spoiler for those who haven’t seen it). There is also, arguably, references to “Through the Looking Glass” and C.S. Lewis.
But, the film is emotionally gripping and the characters are well-developed (except for those that get killed off, anyway). Well worth seeing in my opinion.
The one sci-fi film I wish were made into a film is Neil Stephenson’s “Snow Crash”. This dystopia is actually a modern Republican’s wet dream.
weavrmom
Non-tech person’s advice re something to check when wireless capability goes out: I recently had the wireless connection to my laptop stop working. I thought I needed a new router, and waited for a tech-able person in the family to visit in order to have it fixed. Meanwhile, I wandered around with a modem cable attaching me to the internet. DH, when he returned, pointed out that I had inadvertently disabled my wireless connection. There is often a tiny button, or in this case a series of keyboard commands, that turns off wireless capability. All I had to do, eventually, was press Control and a function key, and I was back in business. Sorry if I’m repeating someone else’s post, just wanted to put that out there.