Category Archives: Movies

Just Leave the Beretta, 007

Posted on by

Letters of Note: May I suggest that Mr. Bond be armed with a revolver?

Boothroyd’s long letter continued in a similar vein, filled with incredibly detailed weaponry suggestions for 007. Fleming, delighted to be furnished with such expert advice, immediately replied with the letter seen below, and, as a result of their subsequent correspondence, equipped Bond with a Walther PPK in the novel Dr. No.

Boothroyd’s observation about the Beretta being a lady’s gun lacking stopping power made it into the movie as “Nice and light — in a lady’s handbag. No stopping power” and the armourer was given the name Major Boothroyd.

Dance it Up, Furball!

Posted on by

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Every year the Disney theme parks host a Star Wars weekend, which means one thing: more demented “Dancing with the Star Wars Cast” videos. But 2011 may be our new favorite. We give you Chewbacca grinding to Guns N’ Roses.

link

Econ 101: Let's Watch Star Wars!

Posted on by

Overthinking It: The Economics of Death Star Planet Destruction

War in general makes poor economic sense. Thousands of lives are lost and millions of man-hours are spent producing things that will break, explode or be exploded. Even the shittiest factory in the world at least produces crappy T-shirts. It may produce them at a higher cost than would justify the operation of the factory, but at least at the end of the day there’s some shirts.

The strategic calculus of the Death Star, on the other hand, may be more rewarding.

One of the more effective negotiation tactics, from a game theory perspective, is to convince your opponent that you’re crazy enough to do something stupid.

Planting the Flag

Posted on by

Denial Depot’s Jaws: A movie review looks at the movie from a denialist perspective.

Matt Hooper from the “Oceanographic Institute” turns up. No-one seems to have called him, he just kind of appears. I’ve heard that scientists can actually smell sources of funding from up to 50 kilometers away. Hooper takes one look at the body and arrogantly proclaims:
“It wasn’t an ‘accident,’ it wasn’t a boat propeller, or a coral reef, or Jack the Ripper. It was a shark.”

What alarmist nonsense! He just blew through all those equally good explanations. And as the local pointed out “nobody’s seen a shark”. So it’s unscientific for Hooper to assert there definitely is a shark. He’s hiding the uncertainty and doubt. Of course if he admitted there wasn’t a shark all his funding would dry up…

I just want to point out that as far as Jaws being a movie about denialism, I got there first.

Hey, it's That Thing From That Flick!

Posted on by

Famous Objects from Classic Movies

It’s done “hangman” (or wheel of morons fortune) style, so you can guess a little. Fun, but I do have to question a couple of the “famous” objects I saw; some are not so iconic that they couldn’t be from more than one movie, or didn’t have a particularly strong association with the movie.

(I mean really, do you associate a coffee cup with one particular movie?)

Meet the Phoscars

Posted on by

Cocktail Party Physics: and the oscar goes to….

Best Depiction of Equivalence Principle: Inception.
…
A quick recap: Acceleration is motion in which either an object’s speed or direction (that is, its velocity) changes. Mathematically, acceleration and gravity are equivalent, just like energy and mass. If you’re riding in the elevator and someone cuts the cable, you’ll go into free fall. It will feel as if you were weightless as you float inside the elevator. Since both you and the elevator are falling at the same rate, you won’t be able to feel gravity’s pull. So from your limited perspective, you might conclude (erroneously) that gravity had inexplicably disappeared. The reverse happens when you accelerate in a car: you feel a force pushing you into you seat. If you can feel gravity’s influence, you can conclude that he is accelerating. And that apparent weightlessness is what’s depicted in this amazing scene — set in an elevator, natch! — in Inception

The Making of James Bond

Posted on by

Terence Young: James Bond’s Creator?

Was Sam Spade charming? Phillip Marlowe? No. Their magnetism relied upon a novelist´s scratch of the pen or a female character that was there simply to fall for the hero. James Bond in the books suffered from the same malady, but what if Young and Maibaum could come up with a different approach. What if Bond CHARMED the ladies into bed. What if Bond could be taken back to the Errol Flynn personae that Fleming truly believed he had created. Bond would be a man of action like Flynn´s Don Juan, but now, for the first time, he wouldn´t just kiss the girl then swing out the window on a conveniently placed rope. This character was spending the night. James Bond was about to become irresistible to women AND he was going to bed the female characters with handsome good looks, and charm.

A Bar Walks Into a Physicist

Posted on by

… oops, wrong reference frame.

I mentioned Brian Malow, the science comedian, in one of my Science Online 2011 summary posts. Here he is discussing (bad) science in Star Wars. Yes, you probably know the scene, and it has nothing to do with who shot first.

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

and some X walks into a bar jokes, some of which you already know

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Thtuck! Thtuck!

Posted on by

You either need to learn about the concepts of thermodynamics, or you can watch A Christmas Story

Boy’s Tongue Stuck to Frozen Pole After ‘Christmas Story’ Dare

You’ve seen this scene before — every Christmas.

An 8-year-old Oklahoma boy got his tongue stuck on a frozen stop sign pole after his brother dared him to lick it.

No mention of an escalation from a double-dog to a triple-dog dare, however.

Overheard in the Lab of the Day

Posted on by

A colleague was whistling the marching tune one hears in The Bridge in on the River Kwai, and after I asked him if we were suddenly in the British Army, I wondered what the name of the song was. Luckily, there’s a way to find such things out, called the internet (which is apparently a series of tubes.) Turns out it’s called The Colonel Bogey March, and the Wikipedia entry implies it has some interesting (not G-rated) lyrics, which it does.