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Re: "Day of the Roses"
Fox Entertainment News did a story on the production of "Day of the
Roses" some months ago (on Foxtel). The focus of the story was on
contrasting the massive budgets of Hollywood disaster films
(eg: Armaggeddon, Volcano) with the tight-budget Australian
ventures underway at the time (Day of the Roses wasn't the only
one).
My impression -- regarding the accuracy of the story, that has been
so much a focus of our discussions -- was that the producers were
mostly trying to honour the spirit and courage of the people
involved. They were not so much interested in getting every
detail correct as they were in accurately portraying the heroics
of the characters (read: people) involved.
In this, I believe they succeeded admirably.
To turn that upon itself, however, as an engineer and a scientist,
I am constantly annoyed by the treatment of science in Hollywood
movies. The attitude seems to be: if we (with no science background)
don't see the science errors, then nobody else will. Or worse, "then
we don't care."
In the case of "Day of the Roses", this is even more dangerous,
because it subverts the teaching of history, which is far more
important to our culture and society than the details of science.
We cannot deny the place that television and cinema have taken
in the education of our society, and the subversive influence of
same. Yet we also must not quietly surrender to their influence.
The moral: don't believe everything you see and hear.
Paulius
--
~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|~ These musings from:
~|~ It's a mistake trying to cheer up camels. ~|~ Paulius G Stepanas
~|~ You may as well drop meringues into a ~|~ Melbourne, Australia.
~|~ black hole. ~|~
~|~ Terry Pratchett (Pyramids) ~|~ p.stepanas@trl.oz.au
~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|~
~|~ Maintainer of The Simpsons Australian Broadcast Info website: ~|~
~|~ http://simpsons.sofcom.com ~|~