In Time

I really wanted to like this movie, because of the concept and because I like both lead actors, but unfortunately it’s a letdown.

Synopsis: Justin Timberlake plays a guy who decides to take on the system when he finally cannot abide by the injustices and restrictions the rich and powerful put on the poor and the working class.  He’ll be aided in his quest by an unlikely ally.

The cool concept I mentioned is this: many years in the future human biology has been altered because of overcrowding and economics.  Humans age normally for the first 25 years, after which the aging process stops altogether.  At that point, however, a digital clock embedded in everyone’s forearm starts counting down the last year one’s allowed to live.  When the count reaches zero, he dies from cardiac arrest.  Time has literally replaced money and can be bought and sold.  As with money, the poor have little and the rich have tons.

Doesn’t that sound like a great idea for a movie?  Unfortunately, about halfway through, the whole structure starts weakening.  I can’t blame Timberlake, who does a good job and is really coming into his own as an actor, or Amanda Seyfried, who’s a good actress but here strains to make her character feel real.  And the always good Cillian Murphy also struggles to make us believe in his morally righteous time-cop.

Ultimately, and sadly, the blame falls on the screenplay by writer-director Andrew Niccol, whose previous work includes the very enjoyable S1m0ne, the brilliant The Truman Show, and one of my all-time-favorites, Gattaca.  The script turns out to be too predictable in the end, and that causes a lot of the suspense to vaporize.

The Bottom Line: a great concept and good actors cannot save this movie from ultimately feeling as soft and deflated as a week old balloon.  In spite of that, it’s still enjoyable, thanks to the many action sequences and plot twists, and it will make you think, not particularly about the movie itself but about what it would mean to live in such a dystopian world.

Grade: 6

Jail time: 4 years

That’s the sentence handed down to doctor Murray in the wrongful death lawsuit brought against him after the death of his most famous patient, Michael Jackson.

From CNN’s Breaking News:

Dr. Conrad Murray has been sentenced to four years in custody in the death of Michael Jackson.

Three weeks ago, Murray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in Jackson's death.

Prosecutors successfully argued that Murray's reckless use of the surgical anesthetic propofol to help Jackson sleep, without proper monitoring equipment, led to the singer's death.

Testimony during Murray's trial revealed that he gave propofol nearly every night in the two months before the singer's June 25, 2009, death as Jackson prepared for upcoming comeback concerts in London.

I hadn’t followed the trial at all, but reading that last paragraph, I can’t but side with the plaintiffs in this case.  Propofol is a very dangerous drug used as anesthetic during surgery only in hospital settings.  For a doctor to administer it nightly as a sleeping aid, it’s unconscionable and criminal.

No wonder the guy died.

Global warming on the rise

Two dire reports on the worsening situation of the Earth’s atmosphere.

From Raw Story:

Intense, months-long heat waves, fierce flooding and an ever-increasing human and economic toll from natural disasters are all things governments around the world should begin anticipating, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced on Friday.

In a draft report, the scientific body warned that climate extremes are more likely than ever in the coming decades, largely due to human activity.

[…] Through effective risk management, the climate panel said, governments can help to mitigate the worst effects in the coming years, and save many lives and potentially billions of dollars in the process.

Illustrating the ratio of what type of savings this could mean for future budgets, Tim Gore, Oxfam’s adviser on climate change, told The Guardian that every dollar spent now to adapt to climate change will soon represent $60 in savings.

“Governments must find the new money needed to invest now, and avoid the far higher costs of clean-up and lives lost later,” he reportedly said.

China is the world’s largest contributor of greenhouse gases, but the U.S. is second and has the highest output per-capita.

From Google News:

Global warming gases have hit record levels in the world's atmosphere, with concentrations of carbon dioxide up 39 percent since the start of the industrial era in 1750, the U.N. weather agency said Monday.

The new figures for 2010 from the World Meteorological Organization show that CO2 levels are now at 389 parts per million, up from about 280 parts per million a quarter-millenium ago. The levels are significant because the gases trap heat in the atmosphere.

WMO Deputy Secretary-General Jeremiah Lengoasa said CO2 emissions are to blame for about four-fifths of the rise. But he noted the lag between what gets pumped into the atmosphere and its effect on climate.

"With this picture in mind, even if emissions were stopped overnight globally, the atmospheric concentrations would continue for decades because of the long lifetime of these greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," he said.

Negotiators from virtually all the world's nations will gather later this month in South Africa to try to agree on steps to head off the worst of the climate disruptions that researchers say will result if concentrations hit around 450 parts per million.

That could happen within several decades at the current rate, though some climate activists and vulnerable nations say the world has already passed the danger point of 350 parts per million and must somehow undo it.

Dire news indeed.

The rise of stronger bacteria

Bad news coming from Europe in the fight against the little microbes:

Superbugs capable of evading even the most powerful antibiotics are increasing their grip in Europe with rates of drug resistance in one type of bacteria reaching 50 percent in the worst-hit countries, health officials said Thursday.

In a report on multi-drug resistant bacteria, or so-called superbugs, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease across the European Union, said the need to combat resistance was “critical.”

[…] K. pneumoniae is a common cause of pneumonia, urinary tract, and bloodstream infections in hospital patients. The superbug form is resistant even to a class of medicines called carbapenems, the most powerful known antibiotics, which are usually reserved by doctors as a last line of defense.

[…] To a large extent, antibiotic resistance is driven by the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, which encourages bacteria to develop new ways of overcoming them.

Experts say primary care doctors are partly to blame for prescribing antibiotics for patients who demand them unnecessarily, and hospitals are also guilty of overuse.

“Fifty percent of all antibiotic use in hospitals can be inappropriate,” the ECDC said, urging far more prudent use.

At the same time, there are few new antibiotic drugs on the horizon and experts are worried that only a few big drug firms, such as GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, still have strong antibiotic research and development programs.

There is little commercial incentive to invest in new drugs that may be held in reserve as last-line weapons.

Sprenger said the report found that the countries with the highest rates of multi-drug resistant infections, such as Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria, also tended to be the ones with the highest use of antibiotics.

“In general what you see is that high resistance goes hand in hand with high consumption,” he said.

Read more here.

Dumb Oscar Rules

Mark Harris, a columnist I enjoy reading on Entertainment Weekly, wrote an article about 3 things the Academy of Motion Pictures, which oversees the Academy Awards, should overhaul.

I agree with him on all points and particularly on this one:

Although the same actor can be nominated in both lead and supporting categories (it’s happened about a dozen times, most recently for Cate Blanchett in 2007), the Academy will not allow an actor to be nominated for more than one performance within the same category.

[…] There’s not much to say about this rule other than that it’s so dumb that no other branch of the Academy shares the policy.

[…] A majority of the Academy clearly understands that there’s nothing wrong with a great year being reflected in a double nomination — so why not for actors? Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, Carey Mulligan, Christopher Plummer, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Judi Dench are among the performers who’d conceivably be eligible to double- or even triple-dip this year; it’s unlikely that it would happen for any of them, which is exactly the reason to change the rule now rather than wait until it causes a real injustice. Actually, that’s already happened. In 1986, Dennis Hopper received his only acting Oscar nomination, for the basketball film Hoosiers. That achievement instantly disqualified all the votes he got for his other, rather more notable supporting performance that year — in Blue Velvet.

I don’t see any wrinkles with Harris’ reasoning.  Composers, writers, directors, costume designers and others have gotten double - or more - nominations in the same category in the same year before, but that’s not allowed for actors unless they get nominated for a supporting and a leading category, and they would never be able to get three nominations.  Ever.

That seems rather unjust and silly to me.

Read more here.

It’s Time!!

My friend Vittorio (currently pictured in the banner) sent me a link to what’s likely the most touching and beautiful video in favor of marriage equality ever:

Why the 1% should do more for the common good

The honorable Independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, plainly explains why we’re in the financial mess we’re in and why it doesn’t make sense to touch social programs for the middle class and the poor without asking the rich to do more and pay their fair share:

Via Raw Story.

A Quote By

The gorgeous Michael Fassbender talking about his full frontal scene in Shame, in which he portrays a sex addict, and which was slapped with an NC-17, a rare label that effectively works as a muzzle, given that most theaters don't carry films with that rating. Fassbender finds the whole controversy a bit silly:

"Half of us have a penis and the other half have probably seen one, and so why should it be more normal to, like, chop people's heads off and shoot people? Does that mean that that's more acceptable or closer to us as human beings?"

Via Towleroad.

Lost species

From David Mixner, a reminder of the children the planet has lost forever:

The origin of an epidemic

I recently read an article about a physics experiment attempting to determine whether neutrinos can travel faster than light, which would invalidate part of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity (according to another article I read shortly afterwards, they cannot), and this tidbit caught my imagination:

If confirmed, scientists say the findings may show that Einstein — seen as the father of modern physics — was wrong when he set out in his theory of special relativity that the speed of light is a “cosmic constant” and nothing can go faster.

This would force a major rethink of theories about how the cosmos works and even mean it would be possible, in theory, to send information into the past.

After reading that, I started wondering, What would I change in the past if I had the chance?

Obviously, things like warning the world about the rise of Hitler or Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden would be high on the list, but reading the following article pretty much sealed the deal:

Jacques Pepin isn’t a big name in AIDS research and he toils not in a scientific world capital but in the Quebec regional city of Sherbrooke. Yet this self-effacing professor is getting international buzz for a new book that traces the improbable voyage of the AIDS virus to a single bush hunter in central Africa in 1921.

[…]

Dr. Pepin’s book, The Origin of AIDS, is gaining attention for some of its surprising conclusions. He collects evidence that the virus spread not only through sexual activity but, crucially, through well-meaning European doctors and nurses fighting tropical diseases in pre-independence Africa.

They used syringes and needles to inject hundreds of patients a day in medical campaigns against diseases such as sleeping sickness, tuberculosis and leprosy. In the process, Dr. Pepin believes, they helped turn a virus infecting a lone ape hunter in Africa into a global epidemic with some 32 million victims.

“The chances that this hunter alone could launch an epidemic are very low,” Dr. Pepin said. “But there are all the chances in the world that he went to be treated for a tropical disease and a little HIV stayed in the syringe. Then the next patient was injected with it intravenously.”

[…]

Dr. Pepin’s research over the years also involved testing the blood of older Africans; and he spent years sifting through historical documents on the colonial period – newspapers, records, academic studies – in capitals across Europe. His turning point, he said, came one day in the southern French city of Marseilles. He was poring over medical archives and found a motherlode of original records crammed with painstaking charts and entries outlining the massive use of injections in colonial Africa.

“That day was a revelation. I realized that these reports probably contained a big part of the explanation of what happened behind the emergence of AIDS,” he said. “If there hadn’t been those medical campaigns, in my opinion, there probably wouldn’t have been an AIDS epidemic.”

[…]

His work led him to connect the dots between that first bush hunter, who probably got infected with HIV while manipulating chimpanzee meat, to the sex trade in fast-growing African cities decades later. Then, in a more speculative turn, he believes the virus bridged the Atlantic with a single Haitian teacher returning home in the 1960s after working in Zaire, before spreading through a Haitian plasma centre, sex tourism and finally surfacing among gay men in California.

Quite stunning if you think about it.  Millions of people have died and millions more are infected, will get infected, and will die, all because of a lack of basic preventative measures in place when well-meaning health care professionals were trying to save the lives of millions of people.

Heartbreakingly sad.

Are we really 99%?

The Guardian’s eye opener about the gap chasm that separates “us” from “them.”

A must see:

A storm on Saturn

This beautiful image of Saturn taken by NASA’s Cassini probe shows us the magnificent planet and its latest and biggest storm:

From The Daily Galaxy:

Kunio Sayanagi, a Cassini imaging team associate and planetary scientist at UCLA: "This new storm is a completely different kind of beast compared to anything we saw on Saturn previously with Cassini. The fact that such outbursts are episodic and keep happening on Saturn every 20 to 30 years or so is telling us something about deep inside the planet, but we have yet to figure out what it is."

New images and animated movies from NASA's Cassini spacecraft chronicle the birth and evolution of the colossal storm that ravaged the northern face of Saturn for nearly a year.

These new full-color mosaics and animations show the storm from its emergence as a tiny spot in a single image almost one year ago, on Dec. 5, 2010, through its subsequent growth into a storm so large it completely encircled the planet by late January 2011.

The monster tempest, which extended north-south approximately 9,000 miles (15,000 kilometers), is the largest seen on Saturn in the past two decades and is the largest by far ever observed on the planet from an interplanetary spacecraft. On the same day that Cassini's high-resolution cameras captured the first images of the storm, Cassini's radio and plasma wave instrument detected the storm's electrical activity, revealing it to be a convective thunderstorm. The storm's active convecting phase ended in late June, but the turbulent clouds it created linger in the atmosphere today.

The storm's 200-day active period also makes it the longest-lasting planet-encircling storm ever seen on Saturn. The previous record holder was an outburst sighted in 1903, which lingered for 150 days. The large disturbance imaged 21 years ago by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and comparable in size to the current storm lasted for only 55 days.

[...]

"The Saturn storm is more like a volcano than a terrestrial weather system," said Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The pressure builds up for many years before the storm erupts. The mystery is that there's no rock to resist the pressure - to delay the eruption for so many years."

A chilling death

Via Towleroad, one of the coolest and most chilling videos I’ve ever seen:

Time lapse

One of the coolest time lapse videos I’ve ever seen:

Kids' trick

I almost lost it:

Biertijd.com // Media » Tablecloth Trick

The view from above

This video, taken from aboard the International Space Station over the course of several nights, is absolutely incredible.  It makes the most compelling argument for both investing into space travel and research, and protecting this fragile home we occupy in the immense vastness of the cold universe:

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Simply breathtaking!

Phil Plait, at Bad Astronomy puts it best:

I’m so overwhelmed by the beauty and coolness of this video I’m not sure which part I like best! The cities streaming by underneath; the instantly recognizable outlines of familiar places like the Great Lakes or the boot of Italy; the incredible flickering thunderstorms — giving you an understanding that there are always thousands of such storms all over the planet at any one time; the incredible 3D view of the green and red aurorae which you can actually see as towering structures dozens or even hundreds kilometers in height; the stars rising and setting and spinning over the horizon; the reflection of the Moon on the Earth below following along our point of view at 2:50 into the footage; or the thin glowing arc above the horizon: airglow, caused by molecules in the upper atmosphere slowly emitting light as they release energy accumulated during the day.

It’s all fantastic.

For me the most heart stopping thing is seeing the extremely thin layer of atmosphere on the horizon that protects every living being on Earth from the ravages of space.  We wouldn’t be here without it, and we really should do everything we can to maintain its good health.

Christmas is coming…

Have you ever seen a cuter advertisement?

The Iron Lady

I always avoid trailers of movies I want to watch like the plague, because they give away too much and often ruin the experience.  I’d rather go in knowing nothing then knowing too much.

I made an exception for Meryl Streep’s upcoming The Iron Lady, because I just couldn’t resist the temptation.

While I stand firm on the opinion that trailers give away too much and should be shorter and more vague, I can’t wait to see Meryl in action as Margaret Thatcher!!

Good news

I might be biased because I never liked his politics, but the final (hopefully) departure of Silvio Berlusconi from a position of power can't be but good news for Italy.

From CNN Breaking News:

Silvio Berlusconi officially resigned as Italy's prime minister Saturday, according to the presidential palace press office.

Berlusconi’s resignation comes after Italy's lower chamber on Saturday approved a series of austerity measures, a move to shore up confidence in the country's economy.

The package, which includes spending cuts and proposals to boost growth, was approved by the Senate Friday, resulting in a market surge.

The prime minister, who has survived many sexual and ethical scandals, pledged to step down once the economic measures passed both houses of parliament.

Berlusconi’s departure signals the end of an era in Italian politics. The 75-year-old business tycoon has been a dominant force since forming his Forza Italia party in 1994.

Good riddance!!

The One That Got Away

Katy Perry enlisted the charming Diego Luna (of Y Tu Mamá También fame) to co-star in the video for her new single, which I find very moving and well made:

Will this single reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, allowing her to actually pass Michael Jackson as the artist with the most #1 singles from an individual album ever, rather then just matching him?

The Banner #3

I picked the third banner when the picture randomly came up on my digital picture frame at home.  When I saw it, I immediately pictured in my head how to slice it in order to make it look like my friend Vittorio was looking at or for something.

I like it because it has an air of mystique to it, and it also feels free and fresh thanks to the waves gently splashing in the background.

This is the original picture:

It was taken on September 5, 2007, on day 4 of our second road trip, during a stop on Lake Erie’s shores, on our way to the magnificent Niagara Falls.  I used a Canon PowerShot S400 set to automatic.

Extinct!

Following my earlier post on rhinos, here are some more sad news for them, from the BBC News:

No wild black rhinos remain in West Africa, according to the latest global assessment of threatened species.

The Red List, drawn up by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), has declared the subspecies extinct.

A subspecies of white rhino in central Africa is also listed as possibly extinct, the organisation says.

The annual update of the Red List now records more threatened species than ever before.

The IUCN reports that despite conservation efforts, 25% of the world's mammals are at risk of extinction. As part of its latest work it has reassessed several rhinoceros groups.

[...]

Overall numbers of black and white rhinos have been rising, but some subspecies have been particularly vulnerable to poaching by criminal gangs who want to trade the animals' valuable horns.

So sad that we as the most powerful species on the planet cannot find ways of protecting the most vulnerable ones.

Shame!!

Another awful video of a police force attacking peaceful protesters in 2011 in America, the purported beacon of democracy, whose politicians tripped all over themselves a few months back to praise the popular protests and unrest in the Middle East.

Now that similar protests have spread to their home turf, they (and their rich friends and supporters) are pushing the police to beat them back into obscurity.

All my sympathy goes to those courageous souls who stand up to power!

From Rawstory.

Dwindling numbers

In an article on Gawker about the forced transfer of black rhinoceros across vast distances in South Africa to protect them from poachers, I read this awful tidbit of news:

It's a bleak landscape for the mighty black rhinoceros. The WWF announced this week that 353 of the endangered mammals, whose horn is incorrectly thought to have cancer-curing powers, have been poached this year alone, already exceeding the number poached in 2010. Current estimates put the total population of the species at 4,240.

4,240 left in the wild.  That's totally fraked up!!

Love Is...

Coming home to a bouquet of fresh flowers :-)

Turtle Love

I saw this amazingly sweet picture on the National Geographic website for the "Pictures We Love: Best of October" section and couldn't resist re-posting it:

Undoing a dam

Towleroad had this incredible time lapse clip of the removal of the White Salmon River dam in Washington State:

A Quote By

Senior Circuit Judge Laurence Hirsch Silberman, of the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia, writing for the majority, which upheld a lower court ruling that a mandate requiring people to purchase health care insurance is allowed under the U.S. Constitution:

“Because virtually everyone will, at some point, need health services, no one is truly inactive, and the health services market is inextricably intertwined with health insurance. Congress found that those who do not purchase health insurance, and instead self-insure, almost inevitably take health care services they cannot afford. Hospitals, by virtue of federal law and professional obligation, provide these services, and as a result, $43 billion in annual costs are shifted to the insured, through higher premiums. That, in turn, makes health insurance less affordable and increases the total number of uninsured. … Therefore, it is argued that Congress rationally concluded that decisions about how to pay for health care, in the aggregate, substantially affect interstate commerce.”

Get Better Soon!!

Adele has been forced to cancel the rest of her tour to recover from a hemorrhage on her vocal cords, which risked to strip her of her beautiful talent forever.

She'll also have to undergo surgery in order to fix the problem before she can resume professional singing.

I wish her the best with her surgery and a speedy recovery.  The music world would be much sadder without her beautiful voice in it.

From the Los Angeles Times:

“It is with deep regret that Adele has been forced to cancel her remaining live dates and promotional appearances in 2011,” reads the statement on her website. “She is to undergo surgery to alleviate the current issues with her throat and a full recovery is expected. As a result, doctors have ordered her to rest her voice and completely recuperate before looking to schedule any work commitments.”

Here she told the news to her fans with her own words.

Tangled

This Disney production reinvigorated the original animation powerhouse, which will hopefully make many more movies as well rounded as this one.

Synopsis: Rapunzel is still an infant when she's kidnapped from her royal parents by a woman who knows that she's the only one with the power to keep her looking young and beautiful forever.  This power comes from Rapunzel's hair, which loses its gift once cut.  For this reason the abductor, who raises Rapunzel as if she were her own daughter, hides in a tower and never lets Rapunzel out.  All this will change when Flynn, a charming thief, shows up on the scene.

The animation is excellent but what's most important is the screenplay.  While the basic construct is still that of two good souls who find each other only to see their love somehow threatened by a villanous figure, Tangled manages to feel fresh and new, and that's all thanks to the script.

The Bottom Line: chalk one up to Disney, who finally put out a product on par with those produced by Pixar and DreamWorks.  Tangled is a funny and fun to watch movie for the whole family, and we can only hope for many more at its level.

Grade: 8

True Blood

Alan Ball's latest creation is like wine: it gets better and better the more it ages.  While I've been smitten with this show from its inception, I crave each new season and hate it when they come to an end.  I already know I'll be lost in a see of sadness the day it finally ends.  For now a fifth season has been ordered, but there's no word for after that.

The greatness of this show is that it keeps surprising the audience with new characters, new twists, new discoveries, new revelations, even when you figure you've seen it all.  Season four centered around black magic and the wonderfully wicked character of Marnie Stonebrook, brought to life by Fiona Shaw.

Unfortunately, characters end up dead at some point, and sometimes this happens to characters we love, but that's also part of the show's greatness.  It fearlessly pushes the envelope, knowing that sometimes the death of a character doesn't necessarily mean they're gone for good...

This show is one of the best I've ever seen, and if you haven't watched any of it, I suggest you rent the first season and continue from there.  You won't want to miss a scene of this great creation, or rather adaptation of Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels.

Grade – Season 4: 10

Contagion

Contagion proves once again that Steven Soderbergh has effectively taken on the mantle of the late Robert Altman as the go-to director for star studden movies in which the characters' storylines intertwine like wicker baskets (even though their movies have nothing else in common).

This time Soderbergh works his magic with Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, John Hawkes, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Elliott Gould, Bryan Cranston, and Jennifer Ehle, who isn't particularly famous but whose resemblance to Meryl Streep in uncanny (I was convinced she was her daughter!!).

Synopsis: an unknown virus that spreads like the common cold but is almost as lethal as Ebola starts infecting humans at an alarming rate.  No one has any idea how to fight it and the only way to prevent infection seems to be complete isolation.  Everyday life crawls to a halt as people become afraid of their neighbors, friends, and families.  The world economy and societal norms crumble.  The CDC, working with its counterparts all over the world and the World Health Organization, are the only hopes to come up with a cure before the human race is wiped out of existence.

The movie touches a very current theme, given the recent outbreaks of Bird Flu and H1N1 viruses, against which humans have no immune defenses and there exists no vaccine.  Interesting is also the very realistic representation of what would happen to our way of life if (or when) such an outbreak were to occur.

I really like Soderbergh's style.  He is a great actors' director, able to get excellent performances out of everyone he works with, in spite of the amazing star wattage often collected on his sets, which might lead to power struggles brought on by outsized egos in less experienced hands.  He tackles interesting subjects and develops them thoroughly and carefully, analyzing every angle.  And he does all this with seeming ease, putting his inimitable stamp on every frame and yet allowing the film to breathe on its own.

The Bottom Line: I think this movie should be watched by everyone because of the subject it tackles.  Its amazing cast should also be a magnet for any movie lover, and if you've never seen anything by Soderbergh, you should start somewhere.

Grade: 9

A murmuration

This has got to be one of the most impressive natural phenomenon I ever saw:

From Towleroad:

A pair of canoeists are treated to the amazing phenomenon known as "murmuration", a survival technique employed by starlings returning from foraging meant to outwit predators. The birds swirl and cloud in an effort to get to the inside of the pack.

Bright Shiny Morning, by James Frey

My first book by Mr. Frey turned out to be a great read.  It was also a very different kind of book from what I'm accustomed to read given its frequent derailments into historical sidebars that arguably added to the whole experience.

The book starts out telling the stories of several different characters, all living in Los Angeles.  The author skips zestily from storyline to storyline while at the same time throwing in both tidbits from new characters' stories and trivia about the city itself, its inhabitants, its businesses, or whatever else he can think of.

While this may sound very confusing, I found all that extra stuff to be very interesting, even though some of the secondary characters' stories don't continue like the main ones, which can be frustrating as one would like to find out more about them.

The only negative comment I have about this book is that all those side tangents the author makes us take become more and more frequent in the second half of the book, rigth when we've become very familiar with the main characters and would like to read more about them.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and I'm looking forward to reading something else by Frey, specifically, the notorious A Million Little Pieces.

Grade: 9

Falling Skies

Produced by Steven Spielberg, this human resistance vs. alien invaders TV show turned out to be one of the best summer shows to come to the small screen in a while and a nice sci-fi flavored treat.

Noah Wyle is perfectly cast as the father of three in charge of keeping the peace between a group of civilians and the military personnel in charge of protecting them, led by a very good Will Patton.

The show is well written and each episode is tightly packed with action and emotion.  The alien forces have clear superiority when it comes to weapons and technology, but the humans manage to mount attacks against them that eventually hit a nerve.

The visual effects are very good, even though the show clearly doesn't have a huge budget.  The whole cast does a good job, and I can't wait to see what season 2 is going to bring us.

Grade - Season 1: 8

Megamind

This inventive and original DreamWorks' product felt fresh even though the basic construct is the same old good guy vs. bad guy with a female interest in between.

Synopsis: Metro Man and Megamind arrive on our planet when their planetary system is swallowed by a black hole.  While Metro Man is gifted with many superhuman physical abilities that assure his adoration among humans, Megamind seems to be gifted with great intelligence, curiosity, and innocence, which bring him to embrace his darker side in order to prevail over Metro Man, who always seems to steal the show.  Metro Man's disappearance from the scene will change things dramatically for both Megamind and the people whose lives they vastly influenced.

The big names taking top billing this time around are Brad Pitt and Will Ferrell.  Both do a good job, even though I once again reiterate my point that I don't pay any attention whatsoever to who is voicing a character when I watch an animated movie.

The Bottom Line: given that the story has some very original twists, I'd totally recommend Megamind not only to kids but their parents too.  The screenplay is written well enough to be satisfying for all ages and given the studio producing it, the animation itself is very well done.

Grade: 8

The Help

This year's summer offering with a pedigree was hounded by plenty of controversy after its release about the veracity of its depictions of life for black women in the 1960s American South.  Not knowing enough about that history to speak intelligently about it, I'll stick to the cinematic aspects of the movie.

Synopsis: a college graduate goes back to her home in Mississippi with a dream of becoming a journalist.  Being put off by the unfair way that black maids working for rich white families (like her own) are treated, she decides to write a book to tell their stories.  It won't be easy to get the very guarded women to open up, but once they do, the stories come flowing.  Once published, the book upends the life of our young author as well as those of the many people she wrote of and for.

Emma Stone does a good job in a serious role after her incredibly successful turn in the great comedy Easy A, but it's the black maids that really steal the show here.  Both Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer give star turning performances worthy of Oscar nominations (and even wins!).

Of note were also the always great Allison Janney, Bryce Dallas Howard, and this year's breakout star Jessica Chastain (who was great in The Debt).  Finally, Sissy Spacek turns in a subtle but incisive performance.

The screenplay is well written and deftly takes us through the many tense situations that arise between the black and white women.  The art direction/set decoration and costume design are top notch.

The Bottom Line: taken on its own, The Help is interesting, well acted, and well directed.  I would recommend it, especially to Oscar watchers, given that it will most certainly be showered with several nominations.

Grade: 8

Global warming spreading faster than expected

An Associated Press article on the dangers humans have hastened on plant and animal species worldwide:

Animals across the world are fleeing global warming by heading north much faster than they were less than a decade ago, a new study says.

About 2,000 species examined are moving away from the equator at an average rate of more than 15 feet per day, about a mile per year, according to new research published Thursday in the journal Science which analyzed previous studies. Species are also moving up mountains to escape the heat, but more slowly, averaging about 4 feet a year.

The species — mostly from the Northern Hemisphere and including plants — moved in fits and starts, but over several decades it averages to about 8 inches an hour away from the equator.

"The speed is an important issue," said study main author Chris Thomas of the University of York. "It is faster than we thought."

[...]

Thomas plotted the movement of the species and compared it to how much they would move based on temperature changes. It was a near perfect match, showing that temperature changes explain what's happening to the critters and plants, Thomas said. The match wasn't quite as exact with the movement up mountains and Thomas thinks that's because species went north instead or they were blocked from going up.

Thomas found that the further north the species live, the faster they moved their home base. That makes sense because in general northern regions are warming more than those closer to the equator.

Conservation biologist Mike Dombeck, a former U.S. Forest Service chief, said changes in where species live — especially movements up mountains — is a problem for many threatened species.

Thomas said what he's studied isn't about some far off problem.

"It's already affected the entire planet's wildlife," Thomas said in a phone interview. "It's not a matter that might happen in the lifetime of our children and our grandchildren. If you look in your garden you can see the effects of climate change already."

Very worrisome.

The guy does have a point

From Towleroad:

Torchwood - Miracle Day

I had never watched Torchwood even though I had heard great things about it.  I decided to give it a try and wasn't disappointed.

The cast, led by the handsome John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), does a good job, and I fell in love with Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), although I wasn't crazy about Mekhi Phifer (Rex Matheson), who seems sure to return for the next season, given the finale's cliffhanger.

Season 4's story line was very intriguing (suddenly, no one dies anymore!!) and I couldn't wait to see how they would resolve it.  In the end I was very pleased with the overall development and conclusion, even though I hated losing the lovable Alexa Havins (Esther Drummond).

It was also nice to see Lauren Ambrose (Jilly Kitzinger) again after her turn in my beloved Six Feet Under.

All in all, not only will I be checking out the next season, I might even go back and watch the first 3 seasons of the show!!

Grade - Season 4: 8

Curb Your Enthusiasm

After skipping a whole year, Larry David treated us to one of the best seasons yet of his show.  He constantly delivered great humor for all the different situations his "character" found himself ensnared into.

Ray actually started watching some episodes again, and we still find ourselves quoting lines from it even after several weeks.

Curb Your Enthusiasm has become a total treat and David once again proves himself the brilliant comedian and showrunner he's known to be.

If you never watched it, give it a try!

Grade - Season 8: 9

Weeds

Season 7 of Weeds was fairly uneven and hardly one of its best.  At one point I even wondered how many times the showrunners are going to be able to come up with new ways for Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) to sell weed.  In how many more troubles can she get.  How much more screwed up can this family get before they finally jump the shark?

Parker is charming and disarming as always and Hunter Parrish (Silas) is growing into his own all the while becoming more and more gorgeous, but the usually endearing Justin Kirk (Andy) and Kevin Nealon (Doug) were mostly boring, while the cunning Alexander Gould (Shane) was almost an afterthought.

Bringing back the great Tonye Patano (Heylia) was a good move, but it made me long for Elizabeth Perkins (Celia) and wonder what happened to her.

The show still has its sparks, but I'm starting to feel less engaged as the situations Nancy finds herself in become more and more dangerous but less and less believable.

Grade - Season 7: 6

The Big C

This show keeps getting better and better.  Season 2 gave us several moments of intense emotions that ran the gamut from happy to devastated.  The season finale closed with one of the most heart stopping moments I've ever seen.

Headlined by a fantastic Laura Linney, supported by Oliver Platt, John Benjamin Hickey, and Gabourey Sidibe, this season prominently featured Cynthia Nixon, Hugh Dancy, and Alan Alda, adding great performers to the already impressive roster.

While the premise might have seemed at first a little far fetched and unlikely to succeed, The Big C has turned into one of my favorite shows, and I can't wait for the next season!

Grade - Season 2: 9

Iron Man 2

The follow up to the uber-successful launch of this super hero’s silver screen career attempts to recreate the magic of the first go-round with mixed results.  Robert Downey, Jr. is back in the iron suit and once again shows us he’s having a grand old time, but he works hard to make sure we do as well.

Synopsis: Tony Stark’s innate merry attitude is besieged on 4 different fronts.  His heart replacement works less and less on a full charge, and seems to be poisoning him as a side effect of keeping him alive.  The US government wants him to turn his Iron Man suit creation over to the Pentagon so it can be studied, replicated, and deployed on the battle field.  His main competitor for Defense Department contracts is playing dirtier and harder than ever.  And the son of a former colleague of his father is out to get revenge for the way his father was treated by the elder Stark by bringing down Stark Industries.  However, Tony won't have to fight these battles alone.

The story is a little convoluted and there seem to be a few too many stretches, but overall it works, especially since we know the character of Tony Stark is supposed to be over the top in Hollywood's re-imagining.

Downey, Jr., very good as usual, is supported again by a funny and likeable Gwyneth Paltrow.  Episode 2 sees the welcome addition of Don Cheadle (good but not perfect), Scarlet Johansson (impressive and mysterious), Sam Rockwell (quite good as the villain), Mickey Rourke (in a very good "bad" turn for the reformed actor), Clark Gregg and John Slattery (both very handsome actors who help link the movie to Thor as a tie-in for next year's super hero mash-up), Garry Shandling (good in the fairly standard role of the sleazy politician), and Samuel L. Jackson (who resumes his cameo from the first Iron Man movie and stretches it a bit in a tantalizing few key scenes).

The visual effects, which are de rigueur in a movie of this genre, are excellent.  The screenplay is quite tight and the action unrelenting.

The Bottom Line: if you liked the first movie, you should enjoy the second.  Sure, it's more overblown and over the top than its predecessor, but overall it's a fun ride in the company of a character we've come to like.  I'd recommend it.

Grade: 7