Maybe, but what credence do you give to SF being taken seriously in academia? At least the oscars have some impact on what kinds of films are made, who makes them, who stars in them, etc. It's nice that academia accepts SF but I don't see how it actually impacts on the genre. I wouldn't even say the writing on SF has improved since university departments have decided its now worthy of discussion.

*Some university departments deem it worthy of discussion.

Otherwise, yes. There are maybe 1-2 truly great SF and/or fantasy books a year, and THOUSANDS of mediocre and outright terrible ones. HUGO doesn't mean much anymore.

The book I've referenced in the what are you reading thread (Ancillary Sword) was the winner of virtually every SF award the year it was released, and yeah, it's fucking incredible, but it's one in a million. Ignored by mainstream critics for the most part.

EDIT: Is it clear that I'm agreeing with you? Not sure if it is. Anyway, let it be known: Severian agrees with demonrail666. About this.

ANOTHER EDIT: I feel like Symbols/Slambang kind of has a monopoly on "ETA," which is why I never write it. But it's an established post-script. "EDITED TO ADD" takes longer to type. If I start appending posts with ETA, and haters start saying I'm aping Slambang, I'm gonna have really hurt feelings.

Also, for the record, I'm using the shorthand "SF" pretty liberally here. If there are any other freakin' nerdos among us, they'll know that "SF" technically, traditionally, stands for "speculative fiction," not "science fiction." This includes speculations about the future, present and past events or scenarios as they affect humanity and the earth.

SF is a better genre term anyway. Clockwork Orange is not really science fiction. It's speculative fiction. Anyway, just wanted to put that out there so my fellow freakin' nerdos don't think me a fraud.

if it's given credence in academia then at least the college kids are reading some of it. and that's a good thing.

but in general i give little credence to most academic writing these days. this is why i said SF's acceptance was one of the few good side effects of the rise of cultural studies-- the others are dismal, like-- cheap applied sociology as hifalutin' "theory". but you already know that lol.

the other thing i forgot to answer to severian is that-- his complaint seemed to me in the end about scientists not taking science fiction seriously. which, ok. why would they?

but also i don't know that the oscars really matter in the end. yes it adds sales and publicity for a while, but it doesn't make movies magically stick in the public consciousness or endure time.

didn't that shitfeast avatar win a bunch of oscars anyway? that was science fiction.

OTOH matrix (the first) was of course way better and i don't know if it won anything, but i don't know if anyone cares if it didn't?

the matrix is such a part of the culture now, it's part of how we understand the world. remember when h8kurdt found zonal marking and said something like "that shit's like the matrix"? (or something like that).

we've had lots of good science fiction lately as i recall. gravity. moon. the martian (i haven't seen the martian yet but i've read good reviews). i liked the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy w/ sam rockwell. the scottish one with scarlett. the other one with scarlett that's not as good. the spike jonze one about the OS-- her--that's scarlett too lol. i coud go on. oh! 2046 is a scifi film but do we think of war kai wong as a scifi filmmaker? no...

existenz. cosmopolis. the one with clive owen about the last baby something something? there are too many to think about it. even the superhero movies are science fiction movies-- thor, avengers, all that BS ends up boiling down to technology these days-- "tesseracs" or something.

no. science fiction is the MAIN mode of fiction these days. if it doesn't get prizes it's probably because dinosaurs are the ones handing them out.

but it doesn't matter because h8kurdt is gonna see things throught the filter of the matrix anyway.

chappie! fucking chappie!

etc etc etc etc

Well, that really wasn't my complaint. I didn't mean to make it sound like it was. No, some of my science profs didn't like it. But I was just using that to point out that it's acceptability in academia isn't, from my experience, very far reaching or widespread.

But on the other hand, you say why should they, I might ask why shouldn't they? If it's just fiction after all, why should it be less accepted by anyone than any other type of fiction? Just playing devil's advocate here.

Avatar was terrible. Let's not talk about that at all.

because science fiction is thought experiments inspired by some sort of scientific or technological premise but it is in fact neither science nor technology, and many people don't get that, and that's gotta get annoying eventually when you're trying to do some actual tedious, methodical, painstaking research to find out a little piece of a very large and still meaningless puzzle, and not the giant explanations of the cosmos that people think about when they think "science!" (the new opium of the people)

there are plenty of scientists who like science fiction and that's a well-known thing, but clearly it's a total non sequitur whether they do or not for their academic/research pursuits because it has nothing to do with them except maybe as a distant inspiration.

the one thing that really bothers me about futuristic sci fi is that they have the same cars. hairstyles and especially music 500 years in the future. I mean WTF?!?

Films about the future are usually interestingly more for what they tell us about the time they were made, than the one they're meant to represent.

Anyway, just watched the very un-SF ...



La Strada

Fellini may have made 'greater', more 'important' or 'iconic' films than La Strada but it still might be my favourite. A film I can watch at any time, in any mood and still absolutely love it.

la strada is AMAZING

--

speaking of non-science fiction, just watched altman's AWESOME "shortcuts"

(took an intermission to ramble here a bit because it's 3 hours long and ADHD HAPPENS)

first time i ever see it. great fucking movie. i really loved it. for me it's probably the best i've seen of his films.

while i enjoy his 70's stuff like mash and nashville, i was actually fully cognizant of the world in 1992 when he released this one, and can relate in a non-anthropological way (or whatever you call the "being there & not an outside observer" thing). so maybe it was that or maybe something else but i reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally loved it. a beautiful work.

Ok! Still, my complaints or whatever had nothing to do with whether scientists should/shouldn't like/not like SF. I did do that devil's advocate thing though, which is what I assume you're addressing here. Am I right?

Either way, I honestly don't have an opinion on this specific subsection of the overall conversation.

I think SF is cool for, as you said, thought experiment purposes, and for grandstanding BS that can kind of glamorize the sciences, which is fine as long as people understand that actual scientific inquiry is noting like what you see in sci-fi movies or read about in sci-if books. If people don't get that it's their own damn fault.

Anyway, really I just want ARRIVAL to win Best Pic, just because it bloody well deserves it.

I'm about to watch Nocturnal Animals too. I think Michael Shannon is a lock for best supporting, so I just see that. And a little more Amy Adams never hurt anyone.

Not always... but much of the time yeah. Guardians of the Galaxy rocking to "Hooked on a Feeling?" Star Trek and "Sabotage?" It doesn't really bother me much, as these are both examples of pretty low brow SF as entertaining as they are.

Have you seen PRIMER? Really really fucking excellent low-budget (but not "b") realistic SF film from 2011 I think. Goddamn incredible.

I dunno, considering every time I see her I sort of ache a little bit inside. Love hurts.

Re: La strada - while La dolce vita is the ultimate in my eyes my favorite is also la strada. He somehow balances his "Felliniesque" circus aesthetic on top of a fucking bleak atmosphere and setting. Seriously the setting reminds me sometimes of like Bergman's Winter Light.

I can see the Bergman similarities too, although if anything I think it comes closer to Shakespearean or Greek Tragedy than anything explicitly from the cinema - without falling into the trap of being filmed theatre. For all its surface simplicity I think it goes deeper than any of his more iconic films. There's something timeless, universal about it.

Anyway,



My Darling Clementine

My favourite Fellini and my favourite Ford, all in the same night. I'm spoiling myself.

You are on a fucking roll. If I ever had to rank my favorite films Clementine would no doubt be top 3. I can watch it any day and any time. I actually just ordered a poster of Fonda sitting on the porch.

Not to mention the rushing blood. I feel ya, you dirty bird!

I watched the 2008 ep of SNL that Amy Adams hosted tonight. My wife said I "got my fix"

Nocturnal Animals is quite brutal in a very specific kind of way that unsettles me. Gonna stick it out though, just to see what all this Michael Shannon fuss is about.

Tom Ford making movies. Yeesh. It's like.. what it David Lynch had no sense of humor or heart? Or talent for filmmaking. Still, stylish enough.

Hello. Who is sober? A lot of people talking downstairs