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Roland Burris – The Junior Senator from Illinois?
Published January 10, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a CommentPosted using ShareThis
The Andromeda Strain – It’s Not Science It’s Fiction
Published May 25, 2008 Entertainment , Science , Science Fiction , TV Leave a CommentThis Memorial Day (tomorrow night) on A&E channel, Ridley and Tony Scott’s version of Michael Chrichton’s seminal techno-thriller, The Andromeda Strain is premiering. I will see it and report back (there will probably be spoilers). Before I do, I want to deal with the reviews that are coming out and some big picture issues about the state of filmed science fiction of late.
It looks like the reviews are mixed, most of them saying, “If you have any knowledge of Mr. Chrichton’s book or Robert Wise’s 1971 big screen adaptation, stay away.” This has never stopped me from watching a remake before, however, I am concerned that it in trying to modernize Andromeda for a new, more hip audience, that the makers of this new version will dumb it down as to make it unbearable. As Joanne Ostrow of the Denver Post opines:
Unfortunately, the story is now inflated to include a government conspiracy, a Clintonesque president, a nasty Army general, a dogged reporter and references to Saddam, Iraq and homeland security to pad the medical mystery.
With bioterrorism a timely topic, and with plague an enduring AIDS metaphor, you’d think the plot would engage on a visceral level. Instead, eminent producing brothers Ridley and Tony Scott have prolonged the flick to miniseries length. Truly awful acting and often silly dialogue botch any tension.
Here’s another point from Ain’t It Cool News that only sends me into a spasmodic laughing jag:
The satellite in the novel and original was designed to find upper atmosphere microorganisms for germ warfare. All fine and dandy right? It ties is nicely with the modern world of WMD’s and biowarfare. For some reason however the writer has decided that this isn’t good enough and in an incredible stretch of the imagination the probe has apparently been sent through a WORMHOLE from the FUTURE! What? I couldn’t believe the sheer stupidity of it. Why drop a perfectly decent plot device that WORKS and makes sense for one that you don’t even get in crap sci-fi?
For those of you that have never read the novel, or seen the original movie, The Andromeda Strain is about a small community coming into contact with a downed satellite, Scoop 1. Scoop’s task, as explained in the last paragraph, was to find microorganisms that the US government could use in biological warfare. As it’s name implies, Scoop scoops up a dandy; a weird alien organism that is capable of making anyone inhaling it, suicidal. Once the human host is dead, all the blood in the body coagulates to powder in a matter of minutes. A team of scientists, led by Dr. Jeremy Stone, is sent to a secret facility in the Nevada desert, set up for just such an emergency.
The original film is very literal, but it’s riveting and the science is dead on. At its core, Andromeda’s about the procedure of isolating a disease organism, the mistakes that can be made, and how common sense can often give way to blind panic. Apparently, this is the part the makers of the new version seem to have missed out on. Science fiction movies, for the most part, have become an action-adventure genre, almost devoid of any true science fictional ideas. Whatever drives the story forward, however dumb or peripheral to the plot a point may be, just get on with it.
This is really distressing when you realize that the Scott brothers produce the series Numb3rs on CBS, a police procedural that entertainingly mixes the art and science of mathematics with finding the bad guys. I was kind of hoping for that here, but, no such luck. If you see the new Andromeda Strain, let me know what you think.
Technorati Tags: remakes, science fiction, television
California Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban – Los Angeles Times
This is great news. I have gay friends and a gay cousin-in-law. Loving, gay couples will now get to do what all loving couples should be able to do in the first place, get equal protection under the law. Of course, within minutes of the decision, the wheels of many anti-gay marriage advocates were already turning, their minds a collective raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought, cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives on how best to scuttle this decision (I’d like to thank Hedley Lamarr).
You’d think these people would have better things to do. Their main argument against gay marriage is that it is not specifically enumerated in the state constitution. Interracial marriage wasn’t at the time that decision was made either, but it’s worked out just fine. I want to know how it possibly effects these anti-gay holes. Gay folks in California already had most of the rights of married couples under the Domestic Partnership statute, but the court said in its decision:
Giving a different name, such as “domestic partnership,” to the “official family relationship” of same-sex couples imposes “appreciable harm” both on the couples and their children, the court said.
The distinction might cast “doubt on whether the official family relationship of same-sex couples enjoys dignity equal to that of opposite-sex couples,” George wrote, joined by Justices Joyce L. Kennard, Kathryn Mickle Werdegar and Carlos R. Moreno.
Amen to that. One of the reasons people get married is to celebrate their union and share it with friends and family. Calling it something other than what it is demeans the relationship.
The only way that this could possibly effect anti-gay marriage frigtards is that it makes them feel all oogy inside. i.e., they don’t like public displays of affection between same sex couples because it makes them feel uncomfortable. I think this feeling of ooginess extends more to seeing gay males necking on a park bench, for example, rather than the more “acceptable” lesbian form of the same thing. Most people can handle hot, girl-on-girl action, but when it comes to guys…
Get over it.
It’s not the gay community’s job to make us who are not gay feel all warm and fuzzy inside. They have the right to live their lives like everyone else. Let me spell it out for you; their are no legions of gay people wearing pink Klan outfits breaking into people’s homes in the dead of night, taking your marriage partners at gunpoint and replacing them with a same sex equivalent.
Technorati Tags: california, gay marriage, legal, politics
From control, shift, cheeseburger
Please, attend. The rules are very simple. If you wish to comment on one of my rambles, I suggest you read said ramble in its tedious entirety before doing so. It’s bad for everyone. It makes me go off like a rocket, and then I have to count to 10 so I don’t flame you. It’s bad for you, the reader, because it makes you look like a fucking idiot. Dude tried to do it on the Psystar post today. Very bad. Just read ‘em.
Technorati Tags: read it all
Survive a Zombie Apocalypse – Wired How-To Wiki
Published May 13, 2008 Entertainment , Movies , Science Fiction Leave a CommentSurvive a Zombie Apocalypse – Wired How-To Wiki:
Wired How-To just posted a new article on how to survive the zombie apocalypse. Here are some of their suggestions:
One tempting option is to go out there with a flamethrower. Zombies may have a natural aversion to fire, you should be able to ignite several of them with one burst, and it looks spectacular – there’s a video of a demonstration here. However, if you check the specifications it has some serious drawbacks. The U.S. Army’s M2-2 flamethrower weighed about seventy pounds, and is effective out to around fifty yards, but the big limitation is ammunition: a fuel tank holding 18 liters of gasoline, enough for approximately five bursts of two seconds each.
This is actually good advice. A couple of really good, well maintained guns and a plentiful supply of ammo should be all you need to dispatch a horde of the shambling undead. The author actually points this out in the article with this proviso:
Unlike living humans, stopping power counts for nothing as far as zombies go; it’s all about shot placement. (And reliability – take at least one back-up gun in case you get a jam or run out of ammo at a bad time.) Anything larger than a .22 will do the job, so long as you’re capable of putting a round squarely though the head. And this is very much harder than you think.
Popping a cap in a zombie’s ass may slow it down, but you really have to scramble its eggs. Put one in the brain. Go out to the firing range and see how hard it is. As with everything in this life, practice makes perfect.
More:
Human factors are probably much more important than hardware. Stay cool, and keep moving. Bring a friend or three, so long as you can count on them not to scream, panic or cause friendly-fire incidents. Zombies are liable to come from all directions at the same time; you don’t get bonus points for killing more of them, so just do what you have to in order to get to safety. And watch out for the ones that are just playing dead. (Actually, they really are dead… but you know what I mean.)
What they’re saying here kids; don’t play Wild Bill Hickock or Annie Oakley and try to dispatch all the zombies in the immediate area. Thinning the herd rather than balls to the wall shambler genocide is way more effective when trying to get to safety.
Of course, the article only mentions the kind of zombies featured in the George A. Romero classic “…of the Dead” series, but not the ones the “28″ movies. Of course I’m referring to the now classic “28 Days Later,” and its superb sequel, “28 Weeks Later.”
In the 28s, Great Britain had an outbreak of the Rage Virus. From the SciFiPedia:
The (Rage) virus is an engineered strain of ebola designed to inhibit violent behavior but ultimately proved to have the opposite effect, leading to extremely violent behavior in primates and an overwhelming urge to spread the disease which is transmitted through bodily fluids such as saliva and blood.
The disease itself is not deadly but the victim’s lack of interest in food eventually leads to starvation. Symptoms of the virus include violent behavior, muscular spasms in the limbs, blood shot eyes and vomiting blood. The infected never act in self preservation and are driven to infect or kill others through biting. As they are not “undead” as in other zombie films, the infected can be killed by conventional means though killing an infected person may be made more difficult by their adrenaline enhanced strength, endurance, and disregard for pain and their own well being.
So, zombie-like enhanced humans who never stop, whose goal is to infect others by biting them. Whew. The good news is you can kill ragers conventionally (the helicopter scene in “28 Weeks Later” comes immediately to mind). The bad news is that hitting a running target, even with a body shot, is much harder than hitting a slower moving undead one. The task here, as I see it, is to coop one’s self up for the duration of the outbreak. You may then wait out the seven days to five weeks it’s going to take for the ragers to die of dehydration or starvation. That means having a place to go that is cut off from the rest of the world, shored up tightly and armed to the teeth. Have lots of guns and blunt, flailing type weapons.
Well there you have it. If you have any other suggestions, comment.
Technorati Tags: 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Night of the Living Dead, rage virus, zombies
