We don’t ask much from science fiction movies: entertaining plot lines, competent acting, huge explosions, and accurate predictions of the future. Many films fail to deliver on that final request, prognosticating about the world to come and screwing it up again and again. Many of these movies rely on the believability of their premise, but when that premise involves a prediction about the state of the world at a specific future date, they’re setting themselves up for failure when that day comes to pass without incident. Here are five films that forecasted doom and gloom that did not happen.
As we crack open fresh calendars for a new year, we’re treated to a predictable rash of blog posts: 2009 technology predictions. I’ve read a number of these, and prognostications about Microsoft buying Yahoo make me want to light my laptop on fire just to cure the boredom. As an anecdote to lame, ‘what’s the next Twitter?’-style tech prediction lists, I’ve decided to make a list 2009 tech predictions entirely inspired by movies.
2008 was the year in which widely available real-world gadgets were just as good as what James Bond had. Sure, Daniel Craig kicked some ass in Quantum of Solace, but his only real piece of tech was a phone with a camera and GPS! (Hope you got a good texting plan with that, James.) I predict this trend will continue in 2009. We’ll see even more real-world gadgets that used to be the sole domain of Hollywood special effects gurus. Sure, some of these technologies will require minor miracles to become a reality in the coming year, but others are closer than you think.
Strength-Enhancing Exoskeleton Armor
In Iron Man, Tony Stark creates a crude, internally-powered suit of armor to escape his terrorist captors. Once he’s safely at home in his billion-dollar laboratory, he hones the suit into a golden ass-kicking machine, and becomes Iron Man. This story isn’t that far from the truth. Rather than a single billionaire playboy, teams of research scientists are developing robotic suits that significantly increase the wearer’s strength. And the end goal is goal is the same: beating the hell out of terrorists. Almost five years ago, UC Berkley researchers announced a DARPA-funded project called BLEEX, the Berkley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton (pictured at left). If you’re thinking that giant backpack is full of the machinery that runs the thing, you’re wrong. That’s the 70 lbs. pack the wearer can hardly feel, thanks to his robot legs. Assuming secret military technology is always ahead of publicized military technology, and considering that the BLEEX is five years old, I think it’s safe to say that in 2009 President Obama will personally don an Iron Man suit and kill Osama bin Laden.
Last week, Roger Ebert finally got around to destroyingreviewing Ben Stein’s anti-evolution film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Ebert’s rant is as cerebral as it is merciless, and it’s worth a read even if you haven’t seen the film. He makes some good points about how the film completely misunderstands the concepts of probability and selection, forming flashy but ultimately useless argument.
Ebert’s rage is thinly veiled. He’s obviously upset that clear logical fallacies can go unnoticed by so many people. Sure, misreading Darwin while attempting to refute him is a lame move when engaging in scientific debate, but the practice is quite common when it comes to filmmaking. When movies deal with evolution, there’s an unspoken understanding that they can completely distort the theory beyond recognition. It’s kind of like calling someone a pedophile during a Friar’s Club Roast, everyone knows it isn’t true, and it’s all in good fun.
When you look at it in this way, Expelled is just the latest in a long line of films that distort the theory of evolution to make a buck. Here are 5 more that are guilty of crimes against the origin of humanity:
JCVD opens wide this weekend, and it’s no secret that I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie. Still, the screening I attended in Toronto was thronged with college students, howling at every mention of Van Damme’s name, so it’s safe to say that the Muscles from Brussels still enjoys a lot of popularity. It’s just unfortunate that people think that translates to JCVD being a good film. It’s not. So to swing the scales in the other direction, here are five moments from Jean Claude Van Damme films that are a lot more fun than anything in JCVD.
Yesterday we pointed to a clip showing that everybody and their Pokémon-loving little brother seems to be endorsing Obama. Well not so fast, my friends, we’ve got them right where we want them. What if some legendary Hollywood directors produced attack ads for the McCain camp? Then we’ll see who has an eleven point lead! Folkinz points us to a clip of what it might look like if John Woo, Kevin Smith, and Wes Anderson went GOP. Although it would never happen in reality, anything is possible on the internet!
The Wes Anderson piece at the end is particularly good. If McCain just put guys in yellow jumpsuits running through the background in slow-mo in a few of his ads, I think he’d get at least a two point bump. The John Woo bit is pretty funny, but it could have used a much bigger budget, to the tune of ten million or so. But with McCain’s current fund raising woes, it’s not likely. Maybe Palin can hire Michael Bay to do some ads for her inevitable 2012 bid. They’d better start financing and preproduction right now.
Funny: The 10 Star Wars Toys that Unintentionally Look Like Other Celebrities, via BoingBoing. Number 6: Slave Leia/Christian Bale. “To be fair, Carrie Fisher was not the daintiest of leading ladies, and Christian Bale is not the most rugged of leading men, so the fact that their action figures would kind of look alike isn’t so surprising. The fact that we’ve seen Bale naked and not Fisher? Not so much surprising as gravely disappointing.”
Ever since he borrowed the other worldy footage of underwater Antarctica to make The Wild Blue Yonder (2005), Werner Herzog has wanted to make a film there himself. The National Science Foundation invited him to come. As, Herzog narrates in the introduction to Encounters at the End of the World, “I told them I would not make a movie about cute, fluffy penguins.”
Herzog wants exploration, not a story. Among the questions he wants to explore is why do chimpanzees–clearly superior primates–not domesticate lesser animals? “A chimpanzee could climb on the back of a goat and ride into the sunset. But it doesn’t. Why?” Herzog asks in his dry, german accented monotone. Of course, he’s not studying chimpanzees in Antarctica, but he sets the tongue-in-cheek tone for the film. He’s a funny narrator, not nearly so severe as in Grizzly Man. But it is Werner Herzog. So, although he’s funny, he’s constantly reminding us we’re all doomed.
The beauty of Antarctica is so monumental, its study is so fascinating. Herzog’s ambivalence is obvious toward the explorers breaking new ground in studying the origins of life while simultaneously making every spot they touch turn ugly. (McMurdo–a base of 1,000 inhabitants–looks worse than a makeshift coal mining town.) His ambivalence constantly upends the easy agenda. Herzog isn’t asking people to reduce their carbon footprint. He went to Antarctica to see a new world, show it to us in all its splendor and, perhaps, risk death a little. Antarctica is a stark slab of ice so vast and so loaded with dangers it serves as an exclamation point at the bottom of the globe warning us our species is just another one on an ancient planet. The planet can swallow us up and, someday for some reason, it will.
Herzog in Encounters at the End of the Worldhas fun in Alaska, but he’s kind of like the funny guy at a funeral. Everyone’s laughing, but nobody is forgetting the situation we’re in. Herzog makes uncomfortable ideas, like we’re not invincible or as dominant as we like to believe, a little easier to swallow. Maybe with a little more humility we will develop more reverence for a place containing the last remnants of mystery on our planet.
You knowaboutthatCloverfieldthing, right? The mysterious trailer for the mysterious J.J. Abrams movie that debuted last weekend in front of the not-at-all mysterious Transformers movie? I honestly haven’t been paying much attention, until a little birdie pinged me about the clip embedded below, which “answers” the mystery of what kind of monster is responsible for the destruction of Manhattan. I’ll give you a hint: the same cultural construct figures prominently in one of my favorite movies of all time (and it’s not Judy Garland).
Last night, Paul and I went to see Venus, starring Peter O’Toole. It was a film Paul had heard much about at Telluride but had missed, so we were glad to catch it. The man who introduced the film said he thinks it’s one to watch for an Oscar nomination and possibly award for O’Toole. I’m not one to make such predictions, but it was an amazing performance. Listen as Paul and I talk about what works in the film (the treatment of larger issues and themes) and what doesn’t work quite as well (like some cliche moments a bit too reminiscent of Pretty Woman and My Fair Lady).
I talked with director Erik Canuel about his action-comedy, Bon Cop, Bad Cop at the Canadian filmmakers reception here at the Denver Film Festival. Canuel discussed how his film came into being and what filmmakers inspire him the most–essentially all filmmakers with real vision and passion.
- Kevin MacDonald (director of The Last King of Scotland–we recorded a podcast with him)
- Natasha (Kevin’s agent–funny and wonderfully opinionated)
- Forest Whitaker (so cool–he also was willing to do a podcast)
- the girls in the gondola (their conversation was…interesting, their allegiance to Family Guy over South Park was…disappointing)
3 favorite spots:
- the pathway along the stream that runs through the town–walking on it was a little retreat
- Baked in Telluride (delicious sandwiches and baked goods)
- the view on the gondola coming back down into Telluride at night (words can’t describe)
2 memorable moments:
- being at the Patrons’ Brunch high in the mountains (beautiful setting, interesting conversation)
- making the nighttime podcast from the gondola
1 way the festival changed you:
- The festival reaffirmed for me that great film isn’t about hype or celebrity. It’s about great stories, artfully told, then consumed and discussed by a community.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
filmcouch-114
In Iron Man, Tony Stark creates a crude, internally-powered suit of armor to escape his terrorist captors. Once he’s safely at home in his billion-dollar laboratory, he hones the suit into a golden ass-kicking machine, and becomes Iron Man. This story isn’t that far from the truth. Rather than a single billionaire playboy, teams of research scientists are developing robotic suits that significantly increase the wearer’s strength. And the end goal is goal is the same: beating the hell out of terrorists. Almost five years ago, UC Berkley researchers announced a DARPA-funded project called BLEEX, the Berkley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton (pictured at left). If you’re thinking that giant backpack is full of the machinery that runs the thing, you’re wrong. That’s the 70 lbs. pack the wearer can hardly feel, thanks to his robot legs. Assuming secret military technology is always ahead of publicized military technology, and considering that the BLEEX is five years old, I think it’s safe to say that in 2009 President Obama will personally don an Iron Man suit and kill Osama bin Laden.
