This week’s films – one line reviews If you like nice fluffy happy films you have to see Wall-E. If you like dark mind-bending films you have to see The Dark Knight. These are both extraordinary films that demand and deserve your attention.
Next Week’s film
I’ll be watching Mamma Mia.
I’ll be watching Dark Knight again.
One of the above is true, the other is completely ridiculous and out of the question.
A Puzzle Inspired by the events in The Dark Knight, here is the standard “trolley problem” (where trolley actually means tram):
A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are 5 people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you can flip a switch which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch?
A Quote “The infinite possibilities each day holds should stagger the mind. The sheer number of experiences I could have is uncountable, breathtaking, and I’m sitting here refreshing my inbox.”
Link
As soon as 3D cinema started to see regular releases, many of us wondered if there was a market for designer 3D glasses, or at least nicer ones than the pairs you get at the cinema. I suspect with the advent of 3D TV using the same technology, the market becomes viable, and so the product duly emerges.
Quote
Marvellously surreal, but also interpretable as a variation on carpe diem:
Bill Murray as Phil in Groundhog day: “Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today!”
Puzzle
Given that no Photoshop is involved, how was this photo achieved?
Photo credit (and by its context, answer to the puzzle) is here.
This week’s film – one line review Mongol was bizarrely repetitive and dramatically failed to chart the rise of Genghis Khan as it had promised.
Next Week’s films I’m going to see The Happening (because I like “everyone’s gone” films) and then The Incredible Hulk (because superhero movies are modern fairy tales) immediately afterwards, bringing the number of films I have seen this month to a total of 5. If interesting films continue to come out I may beat my personal best of 7 in a month, averaging £1.71 with the Cineworld Unlimited card. Woohoo!
The Happening
There are so many trailers for this that I think I’ve put together everything, but here’s a good one:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxMLvh4Tb6g[gone, oh well – T.M. 7/11/14]
IMDb rating: 6.8
Rotten tomatoes rating: 11%!!
Last Week’s Puzzle The two main differences between memes and genes that we identified were that memes never really ‘die’ so can produce offspring indefinitely afterwards (note for example that many email scams were in existence in letter form over a century ago); but also that they actually evolve by Lamarckian evolution rather than Darwinian:
This Week’s Puzzle
What comes next?
person, fiddle, degree, estate, column, sense, ?, …
A Quote The descriptions in Photoshop Disasters are often very well written.
“By renormalizing the model’s waistline, Maxim Mexico takes a bold socio-political stance in the ongoing battle of the politics of representation, clearly referencing the oppressive reification of male-gaze heteronormative modes of synthesis in a semiotic blancmange of post-structural teakettle barbecue hatstand fishmonger.”
A Link To continue the illusion theme, I encourage you to try out this excellent java application demonstrating the incredible effect of change blindness.
Two images cycle with a flash between them: the challenge is to spot what is different between the two images. When you give up, right-click on the image and set the ‘delay’ to be shorter – when you get down to ‘no gap’, the change becomes completely obvious. Then use the right click menu to reset the gap length to a challenging amount (very important – if you watch a different image with ‘no gap’ the difference will be obvious and you can never un-see it), then try a different image.
If anything, this is more incredible than the video last week.
A video I linked to Captain Disillusion explaining the ‘guy catches glasses on face’ video on the Living In A Digital World blog. Because I think he’s so great, here it is again:
A picture Something a bit different this week – instead of something I found online, a picture of me and my parents.
This week’s film – one line review extended to more lines because I am so excited
Speed Racer was exactly what I expected it to be – an absolutely insane over-the-top visual experience, which I highly recommend to anyone that enjoys using their eyes. I went and saw it again at the IMAX a few days later, and that was certainly my movie highlight of the year so far. You can also see my reaction upon first coming out of the cinema in my review here:
Next week’s film
Indiana Jones. Probably on Thursday. Enough said.
A Puzzle
I love the mirror puzzle, but if you’re still pondering it here’s the somewhat mysterious answer: it’s because we have bilateral symmetry.
This week’s puzzle is a test of visualisation skills.
Imagine a cubic box that measures 3 by 3 by 3 feet. Imagine having six identical suitcases, each of which measures 2 by 2 by 1 feet. The challenge is to visualise exactly how you could fit all six suitcases into the box.
A Quote
This line from the movie Waking Life has been going round and round my head recently.
Man on the train: “Whatever you do, don’t be bored, this is absolutely the most exciting time we could have possibly hoped to be alive. And things are just starting.”
A Link
Passive Aggressive Notes collects pictures of confrontational notes. There’s something mysteriously fascinating about it.
