I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the trailers for this movie (back when it was in theaters)… I wasn’t sure if it was a joke! I don’t know how I didn’t see it when it was in theaters, but I finally got around to renting it on DVD. Holy shit… this movie is brilliant and hilarious! It’s the product of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, and it is basically a giant parody of US ethnocentrism in the form of a puppet action movie. The title says it all: we think we are the police of the world, and we really only care about ourselves. One of the many things that makes this movie brilliant is that the parody never lets up, and it is really an awesome movie regardless of the political side you’re on… people who genuinely think that our foreign policy kicks ass will probably love this movie! This is a complete over-the-top exaggeration of how the US likes to throw its weight around… in the form of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie.

The puppets are 2-foot-tall marionettes, with animatronic remote-controlled facial expressions. There is a humorous contrast between the low-tech of the marionette and the superb set decoration. There are huge explosions all the time and there were basically no computer-aided special effects. There are some great extras on the DVD as well. Do yourself a favor and rent (or buy) this movie… you will be humming the theme song for days. 5/5 stars!

I’ll try to keep this relatively short, but I could probably discuss this one for hours: What is “truth”? Is truth just a theoretical idea? Let’s say I think that I think that 1+1=3. Is this true? If I think I can fly, is that true? How do you know something is true? What if I pay you to agree with me? What if I threaten you with physical violence? Is truth merely a belief? a consensus? or is it somehow universal and fundamental? If you agree that certain songs or paintings are better than others, does that imply that there is an objective scale by which “subjective” things can be judged?

Can we say that there is truth in the physical realm? How about in the ethical realm? Is there a fundamental truth in morality that unites all human cultures? If so, is there a “true” version of what is right and wrong? Can “objectivity” be applied to social constructs as it is with physical constructs?

I saw this miniseries/movie shortly after finishing the book it was based on (which I gave 5 stars), and I was extremely pleased with their translation from book to screen. I am a fan of long movies, so I didn’t completely mind that this miniseries (originally aired on BBC) totalled 5 hours! It did drag on a bit at times, and I watched it in two sittings, but it was such a faithful translation that it was really great to see even some less-important parts of the book brought to life. The acting is outstanding… I cannot think of a single character who was not done justice on the screen.

There is another P&P remake coming out soon that will probably be nowhere near as good as this. The book was very dense, and a lot of things happened, to put it simply, so I’m sure that this new 2-hour version will probably cut out lots of the subtleties that made the original so fun.

The only reason I would give this 4 stars is because of the tiring length, but to do that would be to neglect the tremendous amount of effort that went into making this the ultimate P&P movie: the costumes, the settings, the scenery, the acting, etc. I can’t imagine that it could be done any better! So, instead of 4 stars I am giving this 5/5 stars. However, I would not recommend this to anyone with a short attention span.

Here is a funny but smart article from Huffington Post that tries to explore the psychology of why pedophiles overwhelmingly tend to be big fans of Star Trek. Allow me to say that I have never quite gotten into Star Trek, although I do have my nerdy tendencies That said, I like some of psychology in the article, but I wonder (like one of the commenters did) why the author mainly talks about the original series. Maybe that was on TV during the time when the pedophiles of today were growing up.

I think it’s interesting that the author points out how these people who feel (and are) socially outcast dream of a utopia where “differences make no difference”. Anyone have any thoughts on utopian thinking?

I came across this book during a random spelunking through Amazon.com’s recommendations and lists system. Someone had said that the 2002 edition was the best, so I went for it This book, edited by Dave Eggers (whose work does not appear in this book aside from the preface), is a collection of short fiction and nonfiction works that were published in various newspapers and periodicals in 2001. Each work is completely different from the next. Some are stylized, others are documentary. It even includes one comic book piece. This book is targetted at young adults (hence the “nonrequired” in the title of the series), but I think anyone who reads this will get something out of it. Most interesting to me were the stories about Illegal Mexicans in New York City, the flavor industry, a comic about a troubled high schoolers, a story about a boy in the Taliban, and a story about a tortured entertainer trying to find himself. Each of the fiction stories are very much not the kind of mainstream fiction you might be assigned in school, but more importantly they make you think in ways you may not have ever done before because they portray some very unique and interesting experiences.

I read each work except the last one in the book (it was just too fragmented and confusing!) and I enjoyed them all. After finishing each one, I had a feeling like I had lived a little more. That is the mark of good writing! An added bonus: each story is so short that you might be able to finish one per commute, if you read during your commute. It was like a grab bag of writing, some purely slapstick humor, some sad personal stories. Highly recommended! 5/5 stars.

I just read this funny article on the Huffington Post about how “March of the Penguins” disproves the “Intelligent Design” theory

The Aristocrats is a documentary about a legendary joke that comedians have told eachother for years. Not just any joke… the filthiest, dirtiest joke imaginable! The film consists of clips of a comedians talking about the joke. I am going to opt not to tell you about the joke, because part of the fun is hearing the explanation from the comics themselves. What I will tell you is that “the joke” has a very simple intro, followed by an improvisational section, and ends with a very simple puchline. The improv section is where the joke-teller can get as dirty as they can. When I say dirty, I mean more dirty than you have ever imagined. This movie is unrated! The ratings board would certainly have given it a NC-17 rating. The only place you can be exposed to material this dirty is on the internet! Somehow, the editors of this movie have managed to distribute the laughs so that the joke doesn’t get old… there is some incredibly funny stuff near the end. Also, stay through the credits for a funny punchline.

Take a look at the cast of this movie. It is really a thrill to see so many well-known comics tell their version of the joke, and some of my biggest laughs came from comics I had never before heard of. This movie is not for anyone who is easily offended. This is a movie for people who know that a joke is a joke and can get a good laugh hearing about sick and disgusting things. That said, the movie does not have a lot of depth, it is just really really funny in an extremely shallow way. Yes, the movie is kind of like the joke itself, but that doesn’t make it a deep movie. I give this 4/5 stars. Somehow every argument I can come up with for giving it 3 stars I can defeat, and so I am giving it 4 stars. I cannot give it 5 because it just wasn’t a top-caliber movie, but these comics are really genius and this film does them justice. My advice: Get drunk and then see this!

I am a big fan of the Harry Potter series, so I pre-ordered this book. I was very excited to read it, but some friends of mine were more excited and read it before I even begun! I pressured myself to read it as fast as I could so that I could discuss it with them, but it didn’t require much pressure because this book is very compelling and a very fast read. Also of note, at this stage of the series, the books are more appropriate for “young adults” than for kids because there is lots of death and violence. Also… just to tease you a little bit… the Hogwarts students have raging hormones!!! I won’t give anything away, but there is some romance in the book.

I felt that Order of the Phoenix (book 5) was a bit boring at times, and required some endurance to get through all 870 pages. There is nothing boring about this book, however, and it probably helped that Rowling kept it down to 650 pages. If you thought some crazy shit went down in book 5, just wait until you read what happens in this book! Try to avoid any Harry Potter stuff on the internet if you can, because there are spoilers all over the place. I had the misfortune of seeing a spoiler before the book was even released!

To anyone who has marginally enjoyed the series: get this book immediately. To anyone who has not read any of the Harry Potter books, you can’t read them out of order so buy the boxed set and get to work! 5/5 stars!

After hearing this movie was really interesting and really great, I decided to break down and see it. I was really pleased with it! I am all for educational documentaries (I am a huge fan of Modern Marvels, after all), and that’s basically what this movie was. It follows the trials of Antarctica’s Emperor Penguins throughout their journey to produce offspring. It is narrated by Morgan Freeman, who did an excellent job.

First of all, this movie is chock-full of jaw-dropping visuals. Antartica is incredibly beautiful, and if it were ever warmer than 40° below I might want to visit. These penguins are probably the most amusing animals I’ve seen in a while. They walk and belly-slide for miles in a giant line towards their mating ground, where they have a giant penguin party. After the hot penguin sex, the female lays an egg, which must then be cared for by the male penguin. Caring for this egg involves carefully positioning it on top of your feet and covering it with your belly… for 4 months. Meanwhile, the female penguins run off to binge at the local seafood restaurant, and return 4 months later, just in time to care for their newborns. The baby penguins are incredibly cute, and it’s great watching them run around once they are old enough to withstand the cold.

This movie makes you think a little bit, but that’s really not the point. It’s just an amazing species and it’s really fun to watch them do their thing. I would have preferred less narration, especially the parts where the penguins are personified a bit too much (i.e. “the loss of a newborn is unbearable for the mother penguin”). Interestingly, they did not ever use the word “dead” or “died” or “death” (they used words like “fade” or “loss”) but they showed some pretty gruesome imagery of dead penguins and frozen eggs! I would have preferred the opposite, but it was not a big deal. I think anyone would enjoy this movie, so go and see it! It’s a refreshing break from the usual Hollywood formula. 4/5 stars!

This is interesting. Somebody has started a summer camp specifically for Atheists, called “Camp Quest”.

Camp Quest is a secular camp operated in Butler County, Ohio, by a group incorporated in Kentucky. It is for kids who come from families who are atheist or agnostic. For these kids, Camp Quest provides a refuge from a society where God feels omnipresent.

They go so far as to distribute to each camper a dollar bill from before the time that they said “In God We Trust” on them. I have to admit that I’m a bit surprised at this kind of thing. I have some reservations, but I think it’s a step in the right direction. The thing is… why does the atheism have to be such a focus? I have been to a day camp, trip camps, a number of sports camps and (as embarassing as it is) a computer camp when I was a kid… and none of them made anyone pray to God or say grace. At day camp when I was a little kid, I remember we had to say the pledge of alliegance, but I don’t think we had to say grace. Are secular camps really so rare? I think the reason this one made the news is because it’s specifically a God-free camp, as opposed to one which doesn’t lead any religious practices.

So is this a good idea? I guess it’s a free country and people should have as much a right to start a camp about nonreligion as they do to start one about a particular religion. Despite that I’m an athiest myself, I would be more inclined to support camps that are simply non-religious rather than explicitly focussed on non-religion.

It just strikes me as weird somehow… I thought Atheism was about freedom from religion… in that you just don’t think about God because you either don’t believe or you don’t care. The moment you start to turn Atheism into an organization or a “group” of sorts, it seems a bit hypocrytical.