Category Archives: Popular Culture

The Deer Hunter

February 1, 2011 Rand Simberg 18 Comments

I saw the movie for the first time last night. I know, I know.

My impressions, which will probably not be found in any other review.

1) Wow, what a young Meryl Streep. What’s amazing is that she’s actually improved with age in many ways. A truly beautiful woman.

2) Wow, what a young Christopher Walken.

3) A young DeNiro is no big deal — I saw Taxi Driver.

4) There’s no way those mountain scenes were filmed in Pennsylvania — many of them were above the tree line. So I went and looked it up, and found out that they filmed in the Olympics. I would have guessed the Sierras, because they would have been closer to Hollywood. But why not just show what the Appalachians looked like? They were already there to film a lot of other scenes in town. To get points for cinematography? To me it detracted from the movie.

That is all.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Is SF Becoming More Conservative?

January 25, 2011 Rand Simberg 125 Comments

An interesting discussion. I agree with the commenters, like Eric Raymond, that there seems to be a confusion between conservative and libertarian.

Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Space, Technology and Society

The Battle For The Moon

January 24, 2011 Rand Simberg 6 Comments

Joe Pappalardo target=”_ “deflates Mark Whittington’s favorite space fantasy. Over the past half century, the Pentagon has never found any compelling use for military man in space commensurate with the cost. That could change if the cost comes down dramatically, but there was nothing in NASA’s Constellation plans to make that happen. The new programs offer much more hope in that regard, if they can survive the coming budget tsunami.

Media Criticism, Popular Culture

The Problem With Gun Control

January 22, 2011 Rand Simberg 106 Comments

There are lots of them, actually, but right up there is the fact that the ignorami who promote it know nothing about guns. Or rather, they know lots about them that is wrong.