What kind of music do Minnesotans like?

Let’s see…it must have a lot of accordions in it, or cowboys singing drunken love songs to their trucks, right? Just to blow your minds, my colleague with esoteric musical taste, Nic McPhee, is getting interviewed tonight, and he’ll be playing some of his favorite songs on the radio. This is our local university radio station, which has a limited license and can’t play anything that has cracked the top 40 in the last 10 or 20 years, but I don’t think Nic’s taste will conflict at all with the station rules.

So tune in to KUMM, 89.7FM, at 6:00pm Central and have those rural Minnesotan stereotypes broken. If you live farther away than Starbuck, Minnesota, you can also listen to the internet stream.

Anyone played Spore yet?

I have very mixed feelings about this game, but I’ve ordered a copy anyway (Skatje told me I had to). I’ve played with the creature creator, which is actually rather fun…but it’s really just the most elaborate version of Mr Potatohead ever designed. What I’ve seen of the game itself puts me off a bit, though. It’s not going to teach one single thing about evolution, and actually teaches several things that are anti-evolutionary. It’s a design toy, not any kind of evolution simulator, but people are gushing over it as if it might actually improve the image of evolutionary biology.

So I have reservations. I’ll hold off on final judgment until I actually play the silly thing. However, my reservations are nothing compared to this guy who has started an anti-Spore website, because it teaches kids evolution and…

The object of the game is to evolve from a “spore” into demon-like intelligent space creatures that violently take over the galaxy.

Hmmm. Maybe it won’t be so bad.

Stupid cinema nightmares

We actually own a television now, installed right in our living room. In the past, I’ve gotten by with an adapter for my laptop that lets me see the occasional interesting program, but now I can actually tune in to cable stations and flip through what’s being broadcast. It has not been a worthy effort, since most of what’s being shown is dreck.

So I turned to the video store for DVDs. When I want to slack off, I’ve long been a fan of science fiction and horror movies — I grew up in the days of Hammer Films and Vincent Price and many of the cheesy classics of old school SF and creature features, and that kind of entertaining story telling is what I look for in my light entertainment. So I was rather disappointed in my browsing to discover what passes for a horror movie nowadays: an entirely predictable plot with no character, each new movie vying with each other to achieve greater and greater levels of violent torture, usually of young, attractive women, and no genuine creativity at all.

I have to agree with Trish Wilson: these movies aren’t horror or thriller movies at all, they’re torture porn. What is wrong with people that sexuality has been jumbled up with the idea of the graphic inflection of mindless torment on women? Who wants to see a movie that consists of nothing but scenes of humiliation and pain and that always seem to celebrate the monstrous rapist/murderer as some kind of franchise hero?

Trish mentions an excellent example of a movie that does mix sex and horror in an interesting and genuinely frightening way: Cat People, which really does express a terrifying conflict without degrading people as a matter of course. Where are those interesting horror movies nowadays? Any recommendations? I don’t want to see Rob Zombie’s crap or any of those one-word gore-fests like Saw or Hostel or Captivity.

No, this Gloria

I am shocked — people mistook my reference to “Gloria” in the last post for some cheesy 80s dreck, instead of one of the greatest rock songs of all time. So here, for those who are confused, here’s an education:

Laura Branigan? Girlfriend, please.

Darwin movie in the works?

There’s a new movie being developed on the life of Charles Darwin that actually has the potential to be good. It’s based on Randal Keyne’s book, Annie’s Box(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), which is an excellent source that humanizes the man well. It also has a good cast so far, although, seriously, Jennifer Connelly is way too hot to play Emma Darwin — they’re going to have to dress her down quite a bit.

Husband and wife Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly have been cast as a married couple in an upcoming film titled Creation (previously known as Origin). The film tells the life story of Charles Darwin, the English naturalist who essentially came up with the idea of evolution. This biopic is being directed by Jon Amiel, of Entrapment and The Core, and has script penned by John Collee, of Master and Commander and Happy Feet. Bettany will play Darwin, while Connelly will play his wife Emma, which is a good fit considering they’re married in real life, too. Also part of the cast are Jeremy Northam, Toby Jones and Benedict Cumberbatch, however the role of of daughter Annie has yet to be announced.

Oscar winning producer Jeremy Thomas, who is developing the film, explains that “John Collee’s compelling script tells the remarkable story behind Darwin’s revolutionary theory and the foundation of a book that changed the world.” He adds, “we think of Darwin as an old man with a gray beard. The reality of our story is very different.” Creation will portray Darwin as a man torn between his love for his deeply religious wife and his own growing belief in a world where God has no place. The scientist finds himself caught in a struggle between faith and reason, love and truth. Collee’s script is based on the book “Annie’s Box” written by Randal Keynes. Shooting starts at the end of September in England.

I shall await its completion with anticipation. It better not be a wall stain.