It’s two full weeks since I got my tongue pierced and I’ve learned a lot about how my mouth functions. Observations from the day to day healing process:
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Archives for November 2003
Timeline
Like most of his other books, Timeline read less like a novel and more like the treatment for a screenplay. Sadly, the movie Timeline is but a shadow of Crichton’s novel.
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The Physics of Heterosexuality
This may sound odd but I’ve often wondered how men and women manage to have sex. Not that I haven’t been bombarded with images of heterosexuality, like everyone else in America, practically from birth. The mechanics of intercourse are really not a mystery, and haven’t been since I was about eight years old. There are, however, some times when I wonder about the physics of certain couples. Take, for example, the pair that I saw walking to the Metro tonight.
He was a fairly big guy, maybe 6’1″ and a sort of chunky 215lbs. She, on the other hand, was maybe 5’5″ and 110lbs. Her hips couldn’t have measured more than 26″ around. And all I could think as I watched them walk happily, hand-in-hand, down the hill to the subway entrance was: “How is that physically possible?” I’m sort of glad I don’t own a copy of the Kamasutra, or a copy of The Joy of Sex because the reality is that while I’m glad it works for them some how, I don’t really want to know just how.
The Movie Law of Threes
My experience with The Matrix Revolutions got me to thinking about sequels, and, god for bid, “franchise” movies.
Most franchises go at least three movies; two movies and all you have is an original and a sequel. With most franchises the first movie, say Star Wars, was an incredible innovation or a bigger hit than the film makers expected it to be so it spawned a sequel. Some franchises, Batman, started out as something else in another medium, hence they showed up on the screen with a built in fan base and all the first movie needed to do was toe the fan party line enough not to alienate existing fans while being different enough from the original idea that spawned the movie to attract viewers that may have disregarded the same plots and characters in their original medium. No matter what, each franchise breaks down completely by the third movie, losing any originality it had in the first place, as well as, in the end, betraying the qualities which made the first film such a spectacular hit. Take The Matrix series as an example.
The Matrix was visually stunning. Special effects like movie audiences had never seen before wrapped up inside a script containing a plot about a young man accepting his destiny and a theme that pushed the boundaries on the nature of reality. The Matrix Reloaded was, in some ways, the middle act of a traditional three-act story arc and it suffered all the same problems. It got bogged down by its theme and any semblance of plot was, essentially, buried. The Matrix Revolutions, like most third-in-the-series films, was a complete digression from both the first film’s theme and from any sort of coherent development of previous plot points. The Matrix series is a fairly unique example of The Law of Threes. Most often, a series will follow another pattern altogether.
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Thought for a Sunday
There is very little in the world that is more depressing than the job ads in the Sunday paper.