I don't agree with you - Boorman was channeling Jodorowsky on LotR, and Jodorowsky was channeling the usual Mexican peyote-mystics on Dune - with about the same cosmic meaninglessness. But I gave a like to your comment anyway, because it took guts to say - and because I do agree with you on Jackson (minus The Two…

Actually, she was in a "light box" - one side an LED screen on which effects/background were projected, the other side with camera apertures. Ten hours a day she was alone in the rig, usually in helmet and suit, acting alone and in the dark. Kind of like someone, um, lost in space....

Sigh.... Another variation on '70s-80s Saturday Night Live skits, "What if Spartacus had a (Helicopter, Piper Cub, Circular Saw, etc.)" from Prufrock451. Better plots and questions are out there. Yes, just my opinion.

It looks like a large tailing from an abandoned West Virginia coal mine - but that's probably just me. I prefer the great black-and-purple sand dunes of the Vastitas Borealis, myself. Cleaner, more surreal.

Pohl. Man Plus.

I've seen four trailers from Gravity now, and I can say without a doubt - Sandra Bullock is about to become the Fay Wray of science fiction films.... Like Wray, Bullock's screams, grunts, moans, and heavy breathing will echo down the halls of movie history.

Fred Pohl was the Jester to many kings and queens of SF; he was new wave to golden age science fiction fifteen years before the New Wave came along, and continued to rip boundaries apart while remaining respectable throughout his career. That's a hard balance to keep, and he did it better than anyone. I owe him a…

"Link like an Egyptian"...?

I dunno.... I still have a sneaking suspicion that no one has quite exceeded John Coulthart's depiction of R'lyeh:

I suspect Brent is an artistic genius. In his painting I can see medium control, pattern development, experimentation and innovation, structural purpose, fluidity of dynamic - in short, all the "factors" (genuine or just fancy phrases) that art experts ascribe to human genius. Someone needs to give the chimp a grant.…

One huge factor relevant here - and the source of endless amusement to both contemporary commentators on American higher education and historians today - is that European colleges and universities were usually open only to the sons of aristocracy, or wealthy commercial elites who could buy their way in, or churchmen -…

All true and besides the point. A scriptwriter is not necessarily a competent, accomplished SF author, and - as the record demonstrates - does not have the experience, knowledge, and sense of professionalism to judge the originality and quality of SF stories (which is what an SF film ultimately is, albeit in a…

Duel and The Car were certainly the genre-builders. But long before either was "Brando on The Motorcycle" - a particularly diabolical film, because BotM didn't run down innocent women and children... it seduced them.

Give some poor, starving, science fiction authors a break. You don't have to hire them to write the screenplay, but throw them a little cash to develop original ideas and treatments that haven't been deployed and exploited ad nauseum in print, film, and digital media over the last 150 years. I couldn't tell Chris and…

It's true that I don't know you - but consider these. First, you started the "liar, liar" game; my response, borrowing dialogue directly from you, was merely satirical. Second, when you deny the overwhelming weight of global scholarship - both humanities-oriented and scientific - and give no reasons, and then claim…

I doubt that, although it's a nice bit of pedantry disguised as a rejoinder.

All you have to do is get off your duff and look it up, friend. (grin)

I actually collect this stuff - and love it. Here's one of my own favorites:

Actually, you don't necessarily disagree. I was criticizing Berreby for ending on Wells's study, rather than beginning with it. In an otherwise excellent popular summary, structural choices sabotaged effectiveness. My satirical response, therefore, was on the methodological choices made in composition, and not on the…

I was being a bit satirical - but you raise an interesting question. I was under the impression, from reading both articles directly and some of the studies the initial one was based on - that much, if not most, of the research involved species in the wild. Apparently that needs to be clarified.