Homeopathy operates on the belief that if you take a substance that produces a symptom, and dilute it a gazillion-fold, you get something that actually has a cancelling effect. This video, amazingly, validates that very principle — the homeopath starts with real science, dilutes it from a bottomless reservoir of stupidity, and ends up with…
Author: Eric, your haikuist
documentarama: Heima (2007), The King of Kong (2007), The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
I’m currently on my third straight day of being laid up with the flu. It hurts to walk and the idea of eating solid food makes me cringe, and also, I’m ever whinier than usual. On the positive side, though, in addition to watching innumerable hours of Star Trek, I’ve managed to squeeze in some…
Devdas (2002)
I still don’t have enough of a Bollywood vocabulary to put this in its proper place, but to me, this is what I think about when I think about Bollywood movies — 185 minutes of romance, elaborate dance numbers, and over-the-top, no-holds-barred melodrama. It also has some really striking eye candy, both in the sets…
Shantaram and travel plans
It took a few weeks, but I finally got through Gregory David Roberts’ 944-page potboiler Shantaram. It’s the quasi-autobiographical story of an Australian armed robber and anarchist who escapes from prison and flees to Bombay, where he leads an action-filled life as a slum medic, petty criminal, junkie, counterfeiter, gangster, and soldier, with long pauses…
Bamboozled (2000)
The opening shot of Spike Lee’s Bamboozled features Damon Wayans, playing a thoroughly co-opted buppie television writer, nasally reciting the dictionary definition of “satire”. The movie ends with a montage of racist depictions of African-Americans in the media (take that, Birth of a Nation!). These two scenes probably tell you everything you need to know…