This week:
What movie do you think does something admirable (though not necessarily accurate) regarding science? Bonus points for answering whether the chosen movie is any good generally....
Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis. Cinematically it is an early masterpiece, but, it also features a protagonist who is a robot. The term itself was invented in 1920, and the massive field of robotics which exists today was still but a seed in the imaginations of pulp science fiction writers. I admire the fact that this is case a where a science fiction film did anticipate a major trend in science & technology over the coming century, it was more than just a reflection of its times.1 We still aren't where we'd expected to be in regards to robotics today in relation to what futurists expected in the 1960s, but, I think it is clear that the field has a bright future.
1 - To see what I mean, watch Forbidden Planet and note the copious allusions to Freudian psychology.
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I thought you among the more science geek-y of the SBers, and then boom, Metropolis gets your vote! That's pretty film school-y.
Anyway, what I really wanted to say was: check out the front page of SB -- in the related entries section, their algorithm detected an unusual frequency of "Katz," two of which refer to a person, and the other two of which are pics of your kitties. Hilarious!
yeah, i noticed. they weren't pleased....