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In the new Batman movie, director Christopher Nolan made the creative decision to artificially lower Christian Bale's voice, making Batman's dialogue hammier than ever. Here is the hilarious result:

Remember that Simpsons Halloween special where Kang and Kodos try to take over the Earth by posing as Bob Dole and Bill Clinton during the 1996 election? In yet another demonstration of how The Simpsons was ahead of it's time, Kodos/Bob Dole has the following line, "I hope we achieve a fair result in the election, eliminating the need for a violent bloodbath."

The movie Recount, which premiered on HBO on May 25, portrays the events surrounding the contested results of Florida's vote in the 2000 election. Though it tends to give me atrial flutter whenever I revisit those events, I very much enjoyed the movie. Kevin Spacey stars as Ron Klain, Gore's former chief of staff, who was largely in charge of the legal effort to get the votes in Florida recounted. On May 9, Charlie Rose talked to Kevin Spacey about his role. Although Spacey went on record as disagreeing with this assertion, the film is clearly biased in favor of those who would have liked to see the Florida recount proceed. It would be pretty poor storytelling to portray it any other way. However, there is a speech by James Baker's character towards the end (played by Tom Wilkinson) that I liked very much. His point is that, whatever you can say about the 2000 election, we followed a proper, legal process. The tension that our country experienced could have easily escalated to the level of a national crisis, perhaps even civil war. But the legal process was followed, the various Florida courts as well as the Supreme Court made their respective rulings and those rulings were respected. There were no tanks in the streets, no riots, no armed insurgency.

So, for those of you - like me - for whom the past eight years have been a perpetual nightmare, I recommend this movie. If you compare ourselves to countries like Kenya or Zimbabwe, who couldn't make a peaceful transition of power if their lives depended on it, this movie may restore some of your faith in our democracy.

Charlie's interview with Kevin Spacey can be seen here:

I've temporarily put up a PacMan gadget up on my 'Links' page. PacMan is a little before my time; I grew up in the 8-bit graphics era of Nintendo. Also popular around this time were: slap bracelets, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Vanilla Ice.

I encourage you to play and to relive your childhood as I have been doing for the past 17 hours, or so. Whether I am having a true insight, or whether it is the onset of video game-induced delirium, I find myself seeing many parallels between the plight of our PacMan hero and the plight of the primary care physician. Thus, I have compiled the following top 10 list:

Top Ten reasons why PacMan would make an excellent physician:

1. Hunger - PacMan is hungry. Likewise, the excellent physician should never lose his hunger for knowledge.
2. Confidence - A physician can cause harm to his patient by second guessing himself. Sometimes, suboptimal management given in a timely manner can be better than optimal management given after a delay or hesitancy. PacMan has to be sure of his ability to eat all the dots. If he goes for all the power pellets right away, not sure of his ability to effectively evade the ghosts, he will be in trouble later on when all the power pellets are gone.
3. Risk vs. benefit - PacMan is the foremost authority on risk-benefit analysis. Each ghost he eats is worth more than the previous one. If he eats just one ghost that's 200 pts., but if he eats all four that's 3000 pts! However, each additional ghost he eats confers an added risk of getting killed or of not being able to eat all the dots. PacMan must carefully balance all of these opposing factors.
4. Self direction - PacMan must guide himself through a tricky maze. Staying in one place for too long spells certain death for PacMan as it does for the physician who is not self-directed and self-motivated in his continuing education.
5. Yellow - PacMan is bright and colorful and would nicely complement the decor in a pediatrician's office.
6. Flexibility and adaptability - PacMan, if he had them, would be constantly required to think on his feet. Just as the same management protocol is not appropriate for every patient, PacMan cannot eat all the dots and navigate the maze in the same way every time. He has to be constantly changing his plan of attack in order to avoid the ghosts.
7. Expediency - PacMan is always in a hurry! And, given today's culture of managed care and the 15 minute office visit, PacMan knows how to eat all those dots in the most efficient manner possible.
8. Two-dimensional - Ok, maybe this isn't really an advantage per se. But, hey, at least he's not one dimensional!
9. Anticipatory - PacMan must always anticipate where the ghosts might go in order to avoid them. And he must have a plan in place in case they go somewhere other than where he expects them to go.
10. Round - PacMan is circular, like the excellent, well-rounded physician who has ideas and interests and partakes of activities outside the medical world.

If you don't believe me, play the game for yourself!

I'm back home for a few days and went with my family to see the most recent in the film adaptation of C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia," Prince Caspian. It's been a very long time since I read the book, so I can't really speak as to how faithful the movie is. The plot involves our heroes, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, getting called back to Narnia by Prince Caspian (the rightful heir to the Telmarine throne) in order to defeat his evil uncle, Miraz, who intends to have Prince Caspian murdered and to usurp the throne for himself.

The action is passably good, if rather tame. Like good Christians, the Pevensey children, along with Prince Caspian, turn the other cheek, do unto their enemies as they would have done unto them and work out a diplomatic solution to the "succession to the throne" issue involving a power-sharing agreement between Caspian and Miraz that... Oh, no wait a second - nope none of that actually happened. What actually happens is that, like good Christians, Caspian and the Pevensey children preemptively attack their enemies and bravely slaughter them in battle. In fact, given that the mortality rate in this movie rivals The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers it was quite a feat for the producers to come away with a PG rating.

Another interesting decision on the part of the producers of this movie was to give Caspian and the Telmarines Spanish accents. The back story here is that the Telmarines are descended from pirates and, many centuries ago, accidentally came upon some kind of wormhole that brought them to Narnia. Then, instead of behaving like good houseguests, they proceeded to rape and pillage everything in sight. The Telmarines are eventually undone while pursuing our heroes across a river which Aslan (the God figure) then causes to rise up and swallow them. The evil Miraz now defeated, Aslan then goes on to make an offer to the Telmarines, "You may live with us in peace or, more preferably, you may walk through this door I have made in the air and end up some place...else. Someplace where we will never have to see you again." Hmmmm, sound at all familiar? Large numbers of hispanic looking and sounding people, trying to cross a river into unwelcome territory and subsequently being deported to another realm? Does The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian have a political agenda? I'll let you decide.

I missed the season finale of Law and Order SVU because I was watching the Frontline documentary: Storm Over Everest. But I quite enjoyed the previous episode called "Authority," in which Robin Williams plays a disgruntled sound engineer who expresses his years of stored guilt and rage by tricking gullable people into doing things that they wouldn't otherwise do. He does so under the guise of a fictional character named, Miilgram; the name is a reference to the famous "Milgram Experiment" (footage below) in which subjects were asked to administer what they believed to be real electric shocks of increasing voltage to paid volunteers. The shocks, of course, were not real; the subjects who were allegedly being shocked were confederates. The purpose of the experiment was to study the degree to which individuals would blindly follow authority.

Though it produced some very interesting results, today the expirement is widely considered to have been unethical. I, personally, am a strong beliver in informed consent and I don't necessarily think such an experiment is unethical so long as adequate informed consent is obtained (though, this very issue often presents a problem for psychological experiments, in general).
For fun, I included some actual footage from the Milgram experiemnt:

This footage was also included in the Enron documentary, The Smartest Guys in the Room - which I highly recommend.

I love the new incarnation of American Gladiators almost as much as the 1990's original. But, to the AG producers, please indulge me as I voice one small bit of constructive criticism. Your female gladiators - Jet, Venom, Phoenix, Siren - all get to wear dead sexy outfits that expose lots of abs and are tight enough to give us all the information we need about the size and contours of their thighs and of their respective gluteal regions. So, what's the deal with Helga's outfit?

Helga is your HOTTEST gladiator! And just like in all the later seasons of Xena, Warrior Princess (the ones where Xena was really buff), she has to completely cover up the midriff and she has to hide her legs and butt with some frilly skirt-like thingy. American Gladiator producers, take my advice; put the skirt on Jet - she's an amateur and there isn't much there anyway. If there's anyone whose costume should come in two pieces, it's Helga. You guys clearly are not shy about showing off the human form; let's see Helga's beautiful physique!

My girlfriend and I went to see Iron Man last night. The new glut of superhero movies that began around 1998 makes me wish that I had picked up a Marvel comic book or two as a kid instead of all those "outdoor activities" my parents made me partake in - which seemed like a good idea at the time.

We both really enjoyed it. One of the most refreshing aspects of the movie, is that it successfully avoids the trap which so many post-cgi revolution comic book movies fall into. That is, they don't rely on the cgi too much. Or maybe they do, but cgi has improved to the point where I can't tell the diferrence. That point is that, with few exceptions, the movie never looks like a cartoon. There are many fantastic close-ups of "Iron Man" (which Downey's character builds in the basement of his house in Malibu) with relatively few fast-paced, out-of-focus, night-time action sequences. And I never get tired of Stan Lee's principle theme, no matter how many different ways he packages it: that with the power and gifts we are given comes the responsibility to use them for good.

It was a good time. And it also brought home another point I think worth mentioning: "why will congress not authorize the funding to provide our young men and women in Iraq with the robotic, armor-plated, bullet-proof, rocket-propelled, weaponized suits they need? So many brave soldiers risk their lives every day in the name of freedom and justice and everything that America stands for. And yet the democrats in congress want to deny our troops in harms way the armored, nuclear-powered rocket-suits that they so desperately require. The world changed on 9/11..."
-Ugh. I'm having flashbacks to the nightmare that was 2004. I probably have a little PTSD.

And not to worry, this movie is fun without being a flag-waver (which doesn't seem as fashionable as it used to be anyhow). The thinly veiled representations of Al-Qeda terrorists turn out to be victims - not innocent victims, but victims nonetheless - pawns in the game of an American rogue arms dealer, played by Jeff Bridges. The real enemy, as it is an all good superhero stories, is hubris. For it is hubris that was ultimately responsible for the downfall of, among others: Doctor Frankenstein, Morbius (Forbidden Planet), the first two Spider-Man villans, and of course, the Bush administration.