Category Archives: Movies

The Tearjerker

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Pixar grants girl’s dying wish to see ‘Up’

From the minute Colby saw the previews to the Disney-Pixar movie Up, she was desperate to see it. Colby had been diagnosed with vascular cancer about three years ago, said her mother, Lisa Curtin, and at the beginning of this month it became apparent that she would die soon and was too ill to be moved to a theater to see the film.

After a family friend made frantic calls to Pixar to help grant Colby her dying wish, Pixar came to the rescue.

Pardon me, I seem to have a condensation problem on the interior of my ocular assistance apparatus [sniff].

Go Back and Change This

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The best & worst movie time machines

I agree with the Back to the Future flux-capacitor-tricked-out-DeLorean being at the top of the ones shown. But The Harry Potter Timer Turner doesn’t count because it’s not a machine — it’s magic. And they are missing other, like the Terminator franchise time machine, which is so cool that they don’t even show it to us. But given where the terminators sit on the cyborg totem pole, the time machine has to be pretty cool.

Going UP (Very Precisely)

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Via gg I see that there is a new vertex on the bologohedron, The X-Change Files

The X-Change Files explores the intersections of science and entertainment, regularly taking a look at the ways in which science is portrayed in film and television. Given that science is often the basis for provocative and compelling storylines, we’ll also highlight the latest scientific discoveries. Perhaps most importantly, we’ll examine the ways in which public opinion is shaped and behavior is changed by what people see on their television sets and in the movie theaters.

And it comes with an impressive list of contributors.

So I will welcome them, followed by picking some nits in the analysis of Pixar’s new movie, UP which they point out in the post Going UP! . They link to a WIRED story about the movie, which estimates the weight of the house needing to be lifted by helium-filled balloons as being 100,000 lbs.

One more simple calculation — 100,000 pounds divided by 0.067 pounds per cubic foot — and you’ve got that it would take 1,492,537 cubic feet of helium to lift the house.

Ignoring that we’re working in English units, which scientists don’t really do very much, the big thing that pops out to the budding, fully-bloomed, or dying scientist is the misuse of significant digits. Do we really believe the estimate of the house’s weight is exact? No, it’s probably good to 2 digits, at best — the house could easily weigh several thousand pounds more or less than the estimated value. So the answer is that it takes 1,500,000 cubic feet of Helium to fill the balloons. You can’t specify it any better than that. The same mistake propagates through the calculation of the number of balloons.

Now, let’s assume you’ve got a bunch of spherical balloons three feet in diameter. They’ve got a volume in 14.1 cubic feet, so you’d need 105,854 of them filled with helium to lift the house.

Same deal. Not only is the volume not precise, but the balloon diameter is an estimate as well. There is no way to make an exact count to the last balloon you would need. So while Pixar got the science right in estimating the number of balloons needed, and it’s great to be enthusiastic about that, it’s also important not to drop the ball when discussing how well they did.

(The most consistently egregious abuse of significant digits in the media (though not necessarily entertainment media) is when there is a conversion from one unit system to another. An approximation of “30 meters high” is converted using 3.28 feet per meter, so that this rough estimation is then given as 98.4 feet high, instead of 100 feet high, as it should be given.)

And, getting on to some more physics, I see that zapperz has taken a pass at analyzing the physics in this movie as well. The Physics in Disney/Pixar’s “Up” takes another look at the buoyancy issue, and points to what might be a little problem among the rest of the decent physics treatment of the buoyancy. Rhett also looks at this issue, as well as some other analysis.

Hold It!

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RunPee.com

A website that tells you when during a movie you can dash to the bathroom without missing anything critical.

If only conferences had this service, for that balance between proper caffeination and the full bladder.

Some People Go Both Ways

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Movie Trivia: The Wizard of Oz

This one sounds like a total urban legend, but Snopes says it’s true. The costume designers were looking for a very fancy coat for Professor Marvel – the Wizard’s Kansas counterpart – but one that had gotten quite shabby. Some of the crew went to a secondhand shop and bought a bunch of coats to go through; Frank Morgan (the actor who played the Wizard), the director and the wardrobe people selected one out of the bunch that seemed perfect. It had a velvet collar but the nap was worn off of the velvet and it was looking a little worse for the wear. It even fit Morgan just right. Morgan was wearing the coat one afternoon and discovered a label that said “L. Frank Baum.” The coat had originally been made for Baum in Chicago – the tailor verified it, and Baum’s widow did as well. She was given the coat after the movie wrapped.

I Find My Lack of Faith Disturbing

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ThinkGeek has a page showing a Tauntaun sleeping bag

Use the glowing lightsaber zipper pull on the Tauntaun sleeping bag to illustrate how Han Solo saved Luke Skywalker from certain death in the freezing climate of Hoth by slitting open the belly of a dead Tauntaun and placing Luke inside the stinking (but warm) carcass. If your kids don’t change their tune on which Star Wars film is the greatest ever, you can do your best Jar Jar impression until they repent.

… and it’s an April Fool’s Day joke! Nooo! You’re not my father!

Due to an overwhelming tsunami of requests from YOU THE PEOPLE, we have decided to TRY and bring this to life. We have no clue if the suits at Lucasfilms will grant little ThinkGeek a license, nor do we know how much it would ultimately retail for. But if you are interested in ever owning one of these, click the link below and we’ll try!

What a geek tease!

An Offer You Can't Refuse

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The Godfather Wars

A story about the making of The Godfather.

[A] number of priceless ad-libs by actors that turned what was supposed to have been a low-budget movie into a masterpiece.

Examples: “Leave the gun,” Richard Castellano, as Clemenza, orders his henchman after they take out the traitorous Paulie Gatto in a parked car. “Take the cannoli,” he then adds in an inspired ad-lib. “Twenty, thirty grand! In small bills cash, in that little silk purse. Madon’, if this was somebody else’s wedding, sfortunato!,” Paulie Gatto, played by Johnny Martino, adds unscripted in his fluent Italian, about the opportunity for stealing at Connie Corleone’s wedding. When Al Martino, as the whimpering Johnny Fontane, cries over the role the big-shot producer won’t give him, and Brando barks “You can act like a man!” and slaps him, the slap was Brando’s spontaneous attempt to bring some expression into Al Martino’s face, according to Johnny Martino, who had rehearsed with Al (no relation) the weekend before. “Martino didn’t know whether to laugh or cry,” says James Caan.

Also, all the back-and-forth about casting and arriving at Coppola as director.