baby it's cold outside.
What is going on in my life right now...
well I've gone and given myself a lot of things to do tomorrow, which is kind of sucky but I guess I'll deal with it. (Homework, applications/essays to finish by monday, art for drawing class).
I'm also (yet again) participating in the fan-dance for our chinese organization's cultural showthat the presidents of martial arts have lovingly choreographed. I made the "a team" or the fan dance equivalent of such, and am feeling slightly inferior at the moment. The workout I got from the practice today was excellent, however. I'm sure I shall be sore tomorrow.
I don't really like being outside in the winter, which is unfortunate because I really do like being outside otherwise. But I did make sure I was wrapped up very warm today and thus it wasn't too bad, but still walking from kendall station to the kendall theatre was a bit biting.
But on to the point. I saw Creation, which is a movie about Charles Darwin based on personal documents and a book written by one of his children.
Let me be honest here. I am an aspiring biologist, yes, but despite this I know pretty much nothing about Darwin. I know he almost became a clergyman, that he started at Cambridge but didn't finish, and that the married his first cousin. Oh, yes, and the whole H.M.S. Beagle/specimen-finding/Galapagos/Origin of Species thing. But I mean despite the fact (and I'm actually really embarassed about this) that I demanded the illustrated edition of On the Origin of Species for Christmas, I did not read any of it except for the introduction and first few pages. I did, however, look at half the illustrations the night before I was due back at college. I didn't bring the book back to college because it is hardback and freaking HEAVY. There was also a story about "natives" being made into "civilized christians" that apparently happened which amused me greatly in the supporting documents.
I'm not entirely sure what I expected when I sat down halfway through the trailer of Babies (which looks awesome by the way) on a movie about Charles Darwin. I knew it was going to feature the conflict with his wife about religion, and his daughter, and probably his main work because how can you not talk about the Origin of Species when you mention Darwin?
But it was about all those things, and I think that's where the movie confused me. I guess it comes back to, how do you make a good movie about someone that's also real? Because obviously a person's life isn't the same as a good movie in most (if not all) cases, and things are tangled and go this way and that and it's all a general mess. But this version... well it still seemed severely dramatized but still unsure of what it wanted to say. it made me wonder why it had trouble getting produced in the states (which, according to this article, it did).
Really, though, I'm no movie critic. I had a discussion with my friend afterwards where she talked at length about the direction and the staging and how it was reminiscent of A Beautiful Mind, but all I was really wondering was why did they have the part with decomposition in it? It seemed really cool to me at the time, as someone who's interested in that sort of thing, but the movie wasn't about the SCIENCE of Darwin or even really his idea, it was...well I dunno what it was about.
It was moving, though, despite all that. Paul Bettany gave a first-rate performance and made me tear up on a few different occasions, and I distinctly heard a few other people in the theatre sniffling. I don't really know what constitutes as great acting, but he convinced me to care about him as Darwin and I think that works for me.
The movie seemed to want to focus on so many different things about Darwin that it didn't really delve into any of them, though, except for his madness and the relationship with his daughter- but that wasn't the point of the movie either. I guess maybe they thought with a man so great, they ought to highlight everything they can about him, but it didn't really work so well. They touched on his struggles with religion and the outside world as well as the difficulties he ran into while he was working on his book, but it was too subtle for me, at least.
Ugh ok I'm done speculating about the movie. It made me tear up, I liked the pants (mmn calves shutup I'm not weird), and there were interesting animal parts in it. However the crazy parts were, in my opinion, overdone.
I'm gonna go look at some reviews now because I like to hear other people's opinions about things so I can feel validated.
It kind of did remind me of this Discworld quote, which is by Vetinari in Unseen Academicals and pretty much encompasses how I feel about the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent creator: "If there is any kind of supreme being...it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."
well I've gone and given myself a lot of things to do tomorrow, which is kind of sucky but I guess I'll deal with it. (Homework, applications/essays to finish by monday, art for drawing class).
I'm also (yet again) participating in the fan-dance for our chinese organization's cultural showthat the presidents of martial arts have lovingly choreographed. I made the "a team" or the fan dance equivalent of such, and am feeling slightly inferior at the moment. The workout I got from the practice today was excellent, however. I'm sure I shall be sore tomorrow.
I don't really like being outside in the winter, which is unfortunate because I really do like being outside otherwise. But I did make sure I was wrapped up very warm today and thus it wasn't too bad, but still walking from kendall station to the kendall theatre was a bit biting.
But on to the point. I saw Creation, which is a movie about Charles Darwin based on personal documents and a book written by one of his children.
Let me be honest here. I am an aspiring biologist, yes, but despite this I know pretty much nothing about Darwin. I know he almost became a clergyman, that he started at Cambridge but didn't finish, and that the married his first cousin. Oh, yes, and the whole H.M.S. Beagle/specimen-finding/Galapagos/Origin of Species thing. But I mean despite the fact (and I'm actually really embarassed about this) that I demanded the illustrated edition of On the Origin of Species for Christmas, I did not read any of it except for the introduction and first few pages. I did, however, look at half the illustrations the night before I was due back at college. I didn't bring the book back to college because it is hardback and freaking HEAVY. There was also a story about "natives" being made into "civilized christians" that apparently happened which amused me greatly in the supporting documents.
I'm not entirely sure what I expected when I sat down halfway through the trailer of Babies (which looks awesome by the way) on a movie about Charles Darwin. I knew it was going to feature the conflict with his wife about religion, and his daughter, and probably his main work because how can you not talk about the Origin of Species when you mention Darwin?
But it was about all those things, and I think that's where the movie confused me. I guess it comes back to, how do you make a good movie about someone that's also real? Because obviously a person's life isn't the same as a good movie in most (if not all) cases, and things are tangled and go this way and that and it's all a general mess. But this version... well it still seemed severely dramatized but still unsure of what it wanted to say. it made me wonder why it had trouble getting produced in the states (which, according to this article, it did).
Really, though, I'm no movie critic. I had a discussion with my friend afterwards where she talked at length about the direction and the staging and how it was reminiscent of A Beautiful Mind, but all I was really wondering was why did they have the part with decomposition in it? It seemed really cool to me at the time, as someone who's interested in that sort of thing, but the movie wasn't about the SCIENCE of Darwin or even really his idea, it was...well I dunno what it was about.
It was moving, though, despite all that. Paul Bettany gave a first-rate performance and made me tear up on a few different occasions, and I distinctly heard a few other people in the theatre sniffling. I don't really know what constitutes as great acting, but he convinced me to care about him as Darwin and I think that works for me.
The movie seemed to want to focus on so many different things about Darwin that it didn't really delve into any of them, though, except for his madness and the relationship with his daughter- but that wasn't the point of the movie either. I guess maybe they thought with a man so great, they ought to highlight everything they can about him, but it didn't really work so well. They touched on his struggles with religion and the outside world as well as the difficulties he ran into while he was working on his book, but it was too subtle for me, at least.
Ugh ok I'm done speculating about the movie. It made me tear up, I liked the pants (mmn calves shutup I'm not weird), and there were interesting animal parts in it. However the crazy parts were, in my opinion, overdone.
I'm gonna go look at some reviews now because I like to hear other people's opinions about things so I can feel validated.
It kind of did remind me of this Discworld quote, which is by Vetinari in Unseen Academicals and pretty much encompasses how I feel about the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent creator: "If there is any kind of supreme being...it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."