I was looking up all the reviews of Undone expecting a bit more criticism than the fawning reviews I have found. Yes the story is excellent. Yes it does an awesome job of not glossing over the serious matters of mental illness. The characters are well developed. The series is just to he right length. So much positive but some negatives. First, the show is quite definitely "undone" as the ending barely manages to help us suspend our disbelief that the lack of resolution of plot merely to lead us into a second season. This... while the resolution of the images from the rotoscoping was entirely too high. I guess it is because I play around with Photoshop but the live action images were often just too strong beneath the attempt to make things feel like animation. The effect looks great when the action is 2D or flat but when there is a complicated camera angle or the background in the live action is used too much, it is hard again to suspend one's disbelief that this is not just a use of the cartoon filter on Photoshop. It is not just that but again, I had trouble not seeing this and found myself constantly critiquing the images in my mind leaving me with a sense of artificial rather than grandeur. There is only a small percentage that is not done well but that kind of wrecks the illusion of the rest. This small percentage could have been done better and leaves the series again slightly "undone". I enjoyed the series immensely and highly recommend it for it's amazing strengths bit the fawning reviews are just a bit too much.
Reviews
4 Reviews
Amber
(2014)
Threads of Amber
2 September 2014
Warning: Spoilers
This miniseries is well worth watching provided one does not expect the show to follow logical dramatic paths. The ending is what will disappoint most except for a few, I would imagine. There is no doubt that the ending is appropriate. There is no doubt that the meandering threads of the story that each lead to disappointment are equally appropriate. The problem with this series is in the deliberate arrangement of the threads by backing up and going forward in time. This leads to the inevitable conclusion by the viewer that the writer/director is in weaving the story and knows the ending of the story. To then cede control of the story to an UNEXPLAINED (as opposed to unknown) fate is not very good story telling. So, for the lack of an appropriate ending (3 seconds of dirt falling on the camera would have not been too much to ask) the story is all but lost and the viewer is left to contemplate the plot line rather than the tragic lack of closure that is often the fate of parents of missing children. So while it was a good series, it wasn't. It was 3 seconds short.
Particle Fever
(2013)
Cleverly Thoughtful
16 August 2014
This film does a great job of documenting the contemporary PR effort necessary to garner the vast amounts of money needed to run experiments about how our universe works. The very telling moment about this PR is when scientists actually consider doing their experiments in secret in the middle of the night, in order to make sure the experiment, portrayed as the actual experiment for the press, will go well the next day. I think this actually occurred though I did not find that part clear in the documentary. Even in simply considering this, portraying essentially falsehood as truth, is mind boggling. One scientist suggests that the press will want to know the real moment something is actually discovered... well, yes, I suppose. :) They might want that truth, history might want that truth. Give the film credit for documenting this incredibly bizarre moment.
Also, I learned that "experimentalists" (as opposed to the "theorists") must think Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. There is an apt comparison be made that the press was not called in until something actually worked. Imagine them reporting on each of hundreds of failures. Invention is tedious.
However this Edison idea is a confusion of technology (the experimentalists' bailiwick of sorts) with science that the CERN project is supposed to be.
Wikipedia: " Edison did not invent the first electric light bulb, but instead invented the first commercially practical incandescent light. Many earlier inventors had previously devised incandescent lamps."
One of the flaws of an earlier inventor was the high expense to produce an apparently otherwise working light bulb by the wording. It is not as if the expense of going to the moon is considered in that accomplishment. I sometimes find insight in the smallest of things. Or perhaps I am just sarcastically picking apart things. However, when the light bulb was mentioned as invented by Thomas Edison, I talked back to our TV.
Edison was the epitome of what Monsanto, cigarette companies, some trial lawyers in court, and CNN pundit quests rely upon: scientists interested in profit over ideals.
The Edison analogy is adept in more than one way.
Do the political and commercial (public monies) aspects of this giant project (compared to the Great Pyramids by the scientists involved) make it more susceptible to discovering something that pleases rather than the tells the truth?
The "super-symmetric theory" is preferred over the "multiverse theory" by the theorists interviewed. Multiverse theory is basically the idea that there are multiple universes in pure chaos except for our one universe which seems distinctly suited for human life. We are the one in a billion universe that has the right characteristics. The variances are just so in our universe. The chances of human life rest on odds the size of, say, 10 people winning the lottery in the same room who all have red hair, a limp, and a cat named "Bo." Multiverse theory handles this nicely and says that there are a lot of possible existing universes and we happen to be in the one where life was created. If we were not we would not be here.
But why do they cheer lead for "supersymmetry?" Well, as I understand it, this theory gives them more things to do with the CERN supercollider in the future, whereas the multiverse theory makes the odds of finding more things higher in other universes we may never know. To me, this is precisely the point. Unless there is some careful plan, one would think we are absolutely fighting the odds if we think things will necessarily be discoverable by a random limited species in a random world.
One scientist seemed to link his career into discovering things with correct timing, no less. If not, he would be retired and not be part of it. Another scientist is correct in responding that even if retired, the knowing was more important thing.
My understanding of the multiverse and supersymmetric theories was certainly elevated by watching this. There was even a fairly good but concise representation of intelligent design (which is not your local tea party Texas schoolbook concept) but a construct that is fairly difficult to get away from given the unlikely nature of our universe being the way it is by chance. I was stunned to see this discussion, Disregarding politics, this is an actual theory that can be pointed to as the most likely unless it is almost properly ruled out at the beginning as not being science. Again we are not talking about Christianity or any other religion but the simple idea that everything is too precise for random existence.
I wondered why the scientists were pushing for the supersymmetric theory over the multiverse theory at all. This was their stated preference in the documentary. Obviously, truth is truth, but in my younger years studying psychology we understood the massive effect that the scientist's preference can have on experimental outcomes. When you also mix in the vast expenditure of public monies and the career trajectories of all the team involved, it is definitely something to consider. It is not as if I feel that they fudged the results but the whole thing seemed a bit orchestrated... and the presentation... completely orchestrated, complete with Dr. Higgs, as touching as that was.
The multiverse theory, or complete chaos, seemed to me to be the more likely answer. Why should humanity's thoughts and wishes come into it? Even art, a most human endeavor, has expressed itself with chaos at times.
"After the discovery of the Higgs particle in 2012, it was expected that super-symmetric particles would be found at CERN, but there has been still no evidence of them."
Chaos...
/ documentedinsolence.blogspot.com
Also, I learned that "experimentalists" (as opposed to the "theorists") must think Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. There is an apt comparison be made that the press was not called in until something actually worked. Imagine them reporting on each of hundreds of failures. Invention is tedious.
However this Edison idea is a confusion of technology (the experimentalists' bailiwick of sorts) with science that the CERN project is supposed to be.
Wikipedia: " Edison did not invent the first electric light bulb, but instead invented the first commercially practical incandescent light. Many earlier inventors had previously devised incandescent lamps."
One of the flaws of an earlier inventor was the high expense to produce an apparently otherwise working light bulb by the wording. It is not as if the expense of going to the moon is considered in that accomplishment. I sometimes find insight in the smallest of things. Or perhaps I am just sarcastically picking apart things. However, when the light bulb was mentioned as invented by Thomas Edison, I talked back to our TV.
Edison was the epitome of what Monsanto, cigarette companies, some trial lawyers in court, and CNN pundit quests rely upon: scientists interested in profit over ideals.
The Edison analogy is adept in more than one way.
Do the political and commercial (public monies) aspects of this giant project (compared to the Great Pyramids by the scientists involved) make it more susceptible to discovering something that pleases rather than the tells the truth?
The "super-symmetric theory" is preferred over the "multiverse theory" by the theorists interviewed. Multiverse theory is basically the idea that there are multiple universes in pure chaos except for our one universe which seems distinctly suited for human life. We are the one in a billion universe that has the right characteristics. The variances are just so in our universe. The chances of human life rest on odds the size of, say, 10 people winning the lottery in the same room who all have red hair, a limp, and a cat named "Bo." Multiverse theory handles this nicely and says that there are a lot of possible existing universes and we happen to be in the one where life was created. If we were not we would not be here.
But why do they cheer lead for "supersymmetry?" Well, as I understand it, this theory gives them more things to do with the CERN supercollider in the future, whereas the multiverse theory makes the odds of finding more things higher in other universes we may never know. To me, this is precisely the point. Unless there is some careful plan, one would think we are absolutely fighting the odds if we think things will necessarily be discoverable by a random limited species in a random world.
One scientist seemed to link his career into discovering things with correct timing, no less. If not, he would be retired and not be part of it. Another scientist is correct in responding that even if retired, the knowing was more important thing.
My understanding of the multiverse and supersymmetric theories was certainly elevated by watching this. There was even a fairly good but concise representation of intelligent design (which is not your local tea party Texas schoolbook concept) but a construct that is fairly difficult to get away from given the unlikely nature of our universe being the way it is by chance. I was stunned to see this discussion, Disregarding politics, this is an actual theory that can be pointed to as the most likely unless it is almost properly ruled out at the beginning as not being science. Again we are not talking about Christianity or any other religion but the simple idea that everything is too precise for random existence.
I wondered why the scientists were pushing for the supersymmetric theory over the multiverse theory at all. This was their stated preference in the documentary. Obviously, truth is truth, but in my younger years studying psychology we understood the massive effect that the scientist's preference can have on experimental outcomes. When you also mix in the vast expenditure of public monies and the career trajectories of all the team involved, it is definitely something to consider. It is not as if I feel that they fudged the results but the whole thing seemed a bit orchestrated... and the presentation... completely orchestrated, complete with Dr. Higgs, as touching as that was.
The multiverse theory, or complete chaos, seemed to me to be the more likely answer. Why should humanity's thoughts and wishes come into it? Even art, a most human endeavor, has expressed itself with chaos at times.
"After the discovery of the Higgs particle in 2012, it was expected that super-symmetric particles would be found at CERN, but there has been still no evidence of them."
Chaos...
/ documentedinsolence.blogspot.com
Duck Dynasty
(2012–2017)
Fake Reality at It's Worst
28 December 2013
After the gay bashing and racist remarks that were used as a nationwide publicity stunt, the whole yuppie lifestyle these characters led before they grew long beards and pretended to represent a fake lifestyle was exposed and this virtually washed away any pretense to being reality. There really is nothing left to say except that the idea that A&E and other "educational" networks would someday make PBS redundant was also washed away with the public display of homophobia and racism that captured the public attention in late 2013. A&E took the extreme step of firing a member of the show and then decided that, regardless of what they had previously decided, everything could just be a publicity stunt to garner more viewers, and they rehired him. Reality television has yet to go though something akin to the game show scandals of the 1950's. Perhaps the nation is ignorant enough that it never will.
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