Author: andy

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Review: "Grizzly Man" and "Hotel Rwanda"

So, DISHnetwork has been kind enough to give us free movie weekends on Showtime and Starz! recently, therefore our DVR has been busy recording stuff.? We caught up with a few movies from awhile back yesterday:

Grizzly Man was about Timothy Treadwell, a self-proclaimed “bear savior” who spent 13 summers in Alaska “protecting” the bears there.? He took over 100 hours of video footage, some of which is in this 3 hour documentary.? The rest of the movie involves interviews with Timothy’s friends and relatives.? You see, Timothy was mauled by a bear up in Alaska…and, honestly, watching himself on the recordings just shows how nuts he really was…and I say “nuts” in the “clinically insane” sort of way.?? I mean, he had no scientific background…he just went up there and spent the summer living with bears…with no knowledge of their lives and how they’re wild animals…? While you have to admire his dedication to the cause, you also have to realize that he treated grizzly bears like people…he would follow them around and talk to them and pet them…and he would also talk to foxes and tell them how much he loves them.? Each animal got a different name.? This guy was crazy.? Overall, it was a pretty good movie, but started to feel pretty long toward the end…

Hotel Rwanda, on the other hand, was a really good movie. ? It centers on the true story of a man in Rwanda that took in refugees during the murder of about 1,000,000 Tutsi people by the Hutu (well, both sides had heavy losses).? As Wikipedia tells us, the really sad thing is how little anyone did to intervene.? There are many scenes where the UN has “peacekeepers” down there, yet they can’t fire and can’t protect anyone…? Don Cheadle’s character saved over 1,200 people by putting them in the hotel he manages, keeping their presence a secret for a long time, then helping to get them out of the country.? The only downside is that the movie gets kinda confusing, not knowing which side is who and what exactly is going on…? I recommend looking up a little info on the Rwandan genocide before watching, just so you have a little basis of what’s going on…? Supposedly, the movie is pretty accurate, from a historical point of view…which is that much more depressing…

So yeah, a few movies to check out…w00t to lazy Saturdays…

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Oh, oh Brooke…

So, Brooke and I were watching “Numb3rs” last night and she asked the following:

“Is it cold in here…or am I just crazy?”

…to which…I responded simply in uncontrollable laughter…

😉

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Truthiness…

“Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed – Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, ‘It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.'”

— Anonymous

Courtesy of a quote Kristen found in London…and there is wisdom in it…oh yes…

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Review: Silent Hill

So, Josh had me go see “Silent Hill” with him today, a movie based on a popular video game series that first premiered in 1999. If you click through to the Wikipedia description, and go through the various links to each game, you’ll see that some games follow one plot line, and others go in different directions. You’ll also find that each game has a variety of endings…

…such is this movie (i.e. a bunch of parts thrown together). It starts out with a mother, Rose, who finds that her daughter is having nightmares about some place called Silent Hill… She does Google searches to find this place, seeing that it’s a ghost town in West Virginia. Therefore, as any smart mother does (insert sarcasm here…), she decides to take her daughter there… After Rose wrecks the car on the way there, she wakes up to find her daughter missing and ashes falling. After this point, Rose slowly descends into the mystery surrounding Silent Hill and, consequently, hell…

The effects, overall, are pretty good and the story relatively captivating…but only because you think “what the hell?!” throughout and hope that it gets figured out in the end…and while many parts do get resolved, it still leaves you wanting…something… More information? Resolution? A big “hey! You’ve been ‘had’!” from the filmmakers? Who knows…

Regardless, as a scary movie, it doesn’t do so well…at least, I wasn’t scared…although the gory parts made me wriggle in my seat a bit… There weren’t any “jumpy” parts, at least. And while it was an interesting story, unfortunately, it just didn’t make much sense…

…and if you look through the video game information on Wikipedia, you’ll likely see why… It seems that the movie tried taking parts out of each game, and incorporated those elements/scenes effectively (and a few reviewers who have played the game think that the movie evokes the emotion that the game does really well)…but something got lost in translation. I just would have liked to see something a bit more…cohesive…I guess…

Yeah, I guess I’m not really recommending this… It was okay if you like video games and if you liked the series, but as someone who’s never played the game(s), it just didn’t make much sense… I’d wait for the rental…

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Kinda sad…

Some statistics from the May 2006 issue of Popular Science:

  • 68% of American fourth-graders perform below math-proficiency levels for their grade
  • American 15-year-olds rank 21st out of 30 industrialized countries in math
  • American 15-year-olds rank 19th out of 29 industrialized countries in science
  • 42% of American middle school science teachers lack certification in their field
  • 23% of undergraduate degrees are awarded in science, technology and engineering in the United States
  • 64% of undergraduate degrees are awarded in science, technology and engineering in Japan

It’s stuff like this that makes me consider teaching high school instead of going into industry, etc…or at the very least, teaching high school around retirement time rather than at a college somewhere…

Brooke and I are both reading a book now titled “The World is Flat,” by Thomas Friedman, which is about rapid globalization in the 21st century…how the U.S. is quickly falling behind other countries like India and China in technology, etc…? He points out how it can be a good thing for the U.S., since we as Americans tend to do well when we’re challenged (i.e. World War II, the Space Race, etc.), but we’ve gotta start getting in gear unless we want to be left behind.

In any case, it makes me wonder what everyone’s doing with their lives, then. If we’ve got so many people going to college nowadays, why aren’t more of them majoring in “pure” sciences or engineering? It’s not like getting degrees in physics or chemical engineering are going to leave you without a lucrative job when you get out… Maybe it’s because you really need a graduate education before you get a money-making job (not in all cases, of course)?

I dunno…I still find it sad, though…especially sad that the American public is more preoccupied with their own wealth and with Tom and Katie’s new baby rather than with trying to figure out how the world works and, therefore, how to fix its problems.

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“Nevertheless”…

Does anyone know where that word came from? I mean, we were reading in a paper today and it struck me (not the first time, honestly…) how odd that word is. It’s a combination of three English words…like we used to spell it out in a sentence, but then we said it so often that we randomly decided to make it one word… Whose decision was that?!

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"Nevertheless"…

Does anyone know where that word came from? I mean, we were reading in a paper today and it struck me (not the first time, honestly…) how odd that word is. It’s a combination of three English words…like we used to spell it out in a sentence, but then we said it so often that we randomly decided to make it one word… Whose decision was that?!

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Didn’t see that comin’…

So, I’m in this class called “Special Topics in Biomedical Sciences II” where you read papers and discuss them. The papers generally follow along with what we’re getting in our lecture class, so it’s consequently divided up into “units,” of sorts, each with a test at the end. Well, our “Systems” (as in, systems of the body) exam was last Thursday. The grade is based 50% on participation and 50% on the exam for each section; participation is handled in a Socratic style, where the students have to each talk about the paper and what it means, how the experiments were done, etc.

Honestly, I was sure I did well on the exam, but I wasn’t too sure on my participation. We did the first few sessions as a full group, rather than dividing up into two smaller groups (which, all of the class agrees, is preferable)… In the first few sessions, I don’t think I really talked that much…I almost went and talked to Dr. Samson about how I was doing, ’cause I wasn’t really being called on or directed to describe any portions of the paper like some other students were.

Well, we got our grades back today for participation and the exam. I got the high score, overall.

😛

…now, if I can just buffer the grade in the lecture class a bit…hmmmmm…

Posted on

Didn't see that comin'…

So, I’m in this class called “Special Topics in Biomedical Sciences II” where you read papers and discuss them. The papers generally follow along with what we’re getting in our lecture class, so it’s consequently divided up into “units,” of sorts, each with a test at the end. Well, our “Systems” (as in, systems of the body) exam was last Thursday. The grade is based 50% on participation and 50% on the exam for each section; participation is handled in a Socratic style, where the students have to each talk about the paper and what it means, how the experiments were done, etc.

Honestly, I was sure I did well on the exam, but I wasn’t too sure on my participation. We did the first few sessions as a full group, rather than dividing up into two smaller groups (which, all of the class agrees, is preferable)… In the first few sessions, I don’t think I really talked that much…I almost went and talked to Dr. Samson about how I was doing, ’cause I wasn’t really being called on or directed to describe any portions of the paper like some other students were.

Well, we got our grades back today for participation and the exam. I got the high score, overall.

😛

…now, if I can just buffer the grade in the lecture class a bit…hmmmmm…