This summer’s installment of “If you don’t teach your kids theology, Marvel Studios will” comes in the form of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Sure, it’s not a Scorsesian theological treatise. At times it felt very much like a roller coaster ride–an impression helped along by the fact that just a month ago I was riding an actual Guardians of the Galaxy coaster with filmed story elements featuring the same cast. But every now and again, this technicolor space opera takes a breath between virtuosic cadenzas of violence and Zune tunes for a melodramatic musing. The question weighty enough to pull away from the black hole of bombast: What does a creator owe its creation?
[Read more…] about Science Corner: Weltraumgötterdämmerung
Movie Reviews
Science Corner: Magical Multiverse Thinking
I went to see Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness this weekend. (There are no spoilers ahead.) This was only my third trip to an indoor movie in 2 years. Part of my calculus was the fact that I’d be going to see my daughter in her first school musical later that evening. I obviously wasn’t going to miss that. At the same time, if I were to get sick later, I wouldn’t want that to retroactively cloud my memories of my daughter’s performance. But with multiple activities in the same weekend, I add plausible uncertainty without putting other people at additional risk (meaning it was very unlikely I could get infected at the movie in the morning and already be contagious by the evening). Is that kind of thinking scientific? Is it rational? Is it magical?
[Read more…] about Science Corner: Magical Multiverse Thinking
Science Corner: Don’t Look Up at The Matrix
The release of Don’t Look Up around Christmas and Epiphany seems like a gift to sermon writers. The film depicts celestial message of impending doom that too many refuse to look up and see. Well, you know who *did* look up? Some Magi, and what they saw heralded salvation, not doom, for the world. Of course, the film was topical for other reasons. When writer-director Adam McKay scripted the film pre-pandemic, he had no idea that reality was an a collision course with his comedy, forcing him to reportedly alter or cut sequences that were too close to how the pandemic played out. What interested me most, however, was the way it overlapped with another Christmas release, The Matrix Resurrections.
[Read more…] about Science Corner: Don’t Look Up at The Matrix
Science Corner: What Remains of a Life?
This post discusses plot details of Ammonite which is based on the life of Mary Anning while admittedly also employing significant creative license. To the extent such a film can be spoiled, this post contains spoilers.
We haven’t talked about a movie in a while, and since I’ve written before about Mary Anning, it seemed appropriate to discuss the recent film Ammonite based on her life. I knew very little about the film beyond the fact that Anning was its subject, but I was expecting something akin to The Dig, a drama centered around an unlikely archaeological find. And indeed both films feature plenty of English mud. But where The Dig, well, delved into the politics of the early 20th century British archaeology world and the broader significance of the titular excavation, Ammonite is much more interested in the personal life of Anning (including several explicit sex scenes that may be disqualifying for prospective viewers).
[Read more…] about Science Corner: What Remains of a Life?
Science Corner: If I Could Turn Back Time
Most summers I usually mix in some discussion of a science fiction movie or three. There were fewer options this year, but I did manage to see Tenet. I suppose in the present context we should spend a moment just on that fact. I was able to see the film at a local drive-in theater. With all respect to theater staff doing their best, it is not clear to me that any cleaning and distancing protocol can eliminate the SARS-CoV-2 transmission risk of sitting in the same room with strangers for 2+ hours. Cleaning and masks and distancing and reduced capacity can all help mitigate that risk, and ultimately one’s specific risk will depend on many factors including the number of local active cases, the particulars of the air flow in the theater and where everyone is positioned in it, and how much talking and laughing and screaming goes on in that screening. So please do not take the following discussion as an endorsement of indoor theater attendance.
[Read more…] about Science Corner: If I Could Turn Back Time