Tag: nature

video review : Avatar

video review : Avatar

The war-driven plot may be a racy historical metaphor, but that’s about as far out on an artistic limb James Cameron is willing to go. Everything else about Avatar, his first movie since the great Titanic, is safe and sound, often to the point of being cliché; a fact its surprisingly stodgy dialogue and cartoonish characterization give away right from the beginning.

In a future world where Earth people fly to other places in search of mineral goods, a marine named Jake Sully infiltrates moon Pandora; home of a race of tall blue cat-people with long tails and braided hair. He does so with a team of scientists via the Avatar program, which allows them to live on Pandora as Navi creatures without really being there.

It’s imaginative science fiction and the world of Pandora is a visual wonder. There are strange creatures, big and small, and awe-inspiring landscapes that sort of make you want to visit a place like that in real life. The story; a mythological fairy tale based around eye-rollingly unnecessary themes of religion and romance; never lives up to the hype.

my rating : 3 of 5

2009

video review : Avatar : The Way Of Water
video review : Avatar : Fire And Ash

Alex And Me ( book ) … Irene Pepperberg

Alex And Me ( book ) ... Irene Pepperberg

Alex was a parrot; perhaps the most intelligent parrot to ever live; thanks to years of extensive training at the hands of his owner; scientist and animal cognition professor Irene Pepperberg. She, along with her team of researchers, taught the bird not only to talk but also to understand language and numerical concepts up to about the level of a five-year-old human, which opened doors to new study in the field. In a nutshell, what Alex showed the world is that “bird brain” isn’t such a disparaging term after all.

This book; a memoir; covers the thirty years Irene spent working with Alex without bogging readers down in scientific explanations. The learning experiments she conducted are covered in simple terms and, aside from a few irrelevant details regarding her career struggles, pages fly along fairly interestingly. What’s amazing if true, of course, are the little, often humorous, anecdotes of Alex and his intellectual antics; accounts of him doing things popular science says birds simply shouldn’t be able to do.

my rating : 3 of 5

2008