Category: Amusing

Adam Weiner has a great post over at PopSci on the scientific innacuracies that plague a lot of mainstream films.

He discusses the wacky physics of the motorcycle fight in Mission Impossible 2, the impossibility of Vin Diesel outrunning an avalanche in XXX on a snowboard, the actual physical strain Batman’s grappling hook would take on him and Vicky Vale and that insane bus jump in Speed.

My favourite though is the oft-repeated sin of sounds in space.

As Adam puts it:

The most frequent sci-fi physics sin is, without a doubt, the incredible sounds emitted by all those zooming spacecraft, all those exploding planets, all those laser beams whizzing by.

As every student learns very early on, sound waves need a medium through which to pass in the form of vibrations to be heard. Air, water, the membrane of your eardrum—all are sufficient media to transmit these vibrations.

And as we all know, the cold vacuum of space is unfortunately devoid of anything substantial enough to serve as a transmissive medium.

It’s true, however, that those unfortunate enough to have their spacecraft destroyed be in a spaceship while it was exploding would certainly hear quite a racket for a few split seconds from inside, as the sound vibrations passed through the ship itself and into what was left of the cockpit’s pressurized atmosphere as it broke up.

But once the damage was done, we’d be back to space’s normal, somber silence. But hey, I guess all those sound designers and THX-equipped theaters need to be used for something, right?

The tagline for Alien says ‘In space no-one can hear you scream’ – well, that’s because they physically can’t.

However, if movies did follow science to the letter, wouldn’t a large chunk of the sc-fi canon just be weird silent movie hybrids?

> Check out Adam’s book Don’t Try This at Home! The Physics of Hollywood Movies at Amazon
> 40 Things That Only Happen in the Movies is a different take on the unofficial rules of movies

Theatre group ImprovEverywhere recently got 200 people to freeze for 5 minutes in Grand Central Station, New York.

> Official site for Improv Everywhere
> Find out more about Improv Everywhere at Wikipedia

This Slate mashup video comparing Tracy Flick from Election to Hilary Clinton is actually quite uncanny:

Tom Hanks is on MySpace – or in his words:

“The MySpace page created and updated by, yes, Tom Hanks and/or his crack staff of Professional Show Business Experts!”

Check out his welcome video:

There are a couple of other videos of him driving his electric car and that YouTube spoof of him as James Bond, which he sportingly files under a section called Pranks on Hanks.

> More Tom Hanks Videos on MySpace
> Tom Hanks at the IMDb
> See a great appearance by Tom on The Late Show with David Letterman in 1994

In what appears to be one of the coolest movie tie-in’s ever a selection of 7/Eleven’s in America are being rebranded as Kwik-E-Marts in order to promote the upcoming Simpsons movie.

Check out the photos below of the store in Burbank:

> Find out more about The Simpsons movie at Wikipedia
> Check out more photos of Kwik E Marts at Flickr

Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University has made a clever mashup of Disney movies to make a few points about copyright:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo[/youtube]

> Find out more about copyright at Wikipedia
> Link to the video at Stanford law school

(Link via Boing Boing)

Will Ferrell and Adam McKay have had huge success with films like Anchorman and Talladega Nights. But why are they turning their hands to viral video with their new short film The Landlord?

Wired have an interesting article explaining why:

How do you make a viral web hit that scores more than 7 million views in 24 hours? Film a two-minute clip in 45 minutes, keep to one location and rely on friends and family for cast and crew. Of course, it doesn’t hurt if you’re friends with comedian Will Ferrell, that your foul-mouthed 2-year-old daughter is hilarious or that venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road think you’re funny.

The rocket success of The Landlord, a video short made by former Saturday Night Live writer Adam McKay and his long-time friend Ferrell isn’t too surprising. What is, though, is that VCs from Sequoia Capital, known for backing the likes of Apple, Google, YouTube and Yahoo, had the foresight to set the whole thing up.

Several months ago, Sequoia went to Creative Artists with the idea for a site that relied on a mix of celeb and home-spun video clips that could be ranked by viewers — think of a cross between YouTube and Digg. Now Sequoia Capital is the backer of the site, named Funny or Die, which also offers up material from Gary Sanchez Productions, the company McKay runs with Ferrell.

Plus McKay explains why he’s attracted to the internet:

“On the web you do ideas you can’t use anywhere else. Like, a baby landlord would never work as a movie. We were excited by getting this chance to goof around with those kinds of ideas.”

Check out the rest of the article here and watch The Landlord here.

> Check out the Viral Video Chart
> More videos at Funny or Die

Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt recently filmed some paparazzi in New York and posted the footage on his own website.

It’s called Pictures of Assholes:

[youtube]BzX36AW9Fhs[/youtube]

The actor writes:

It doesn’t normally happen that paparazzi photographers pay me any attention when I’m not working.  In fact, it only ever happened once (thank god) that I can think of.  Luckily I had my video camera on me when it did.

A friend and I were just walking down the street in Manhattan when we passed these two photographers who were sitting outside the entrance of some hotel, presumably waiting to photograph somebody who was staying there. I didn’t think much of them until, a block or so later, they came running up and started to take my picture. I tried to be nice and politely ask them not to. They were neither nice nor polite. And that’s when I remembered I had my camera in my bag.  So that’s where the movie starts.

The only other thing I’ll say is (and I had trouble deciding whether or not to be so blunt with my opinion, but here goes) I do believe that the myth of “Celebrity” is not just innocently shallow entertainment, but a powerful and fundamental part of a larger movement revolving around greed, apathy and hierarchy that is currently dragging us down, down, down, lower and scarier, and perhaps weaker than we’ve ever, ever been. Smile!

It is an interesting little snapshot into how this branch of the media reacts when they have the tables turned on them.

[Link via ScreenGrab]

> Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s site
> IMDb entry for the actor
> An interview with the actor at NervePop