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Sunday, October 01, 2006

proof

I started watching this film awhile ago and was annoyed, but somehow I ended up trying it again.
This time it worked for me. A minor complaint was that they didn't need to be so afraid of showing math. It had the feel of some editor coming in and saying, "the audience doesn't know math- tone that stuff down, it will scare them." There was also a little bit of self-conscousness surrounding the issue of women in math, a sort of tentative try to make a few comments, but not exactly sure what it was saying. But emotionally the film was pretty interesting. A nuanced look at how to determine whether or not someone's crazy and the subjectiveness about the conclusion. In this respect, the film was refreshing in its sparse treatment of math itself. Movies like "Pi" and "A Beautiful Mind" tied craziness with math ability more explicitly. Here the issues are separate.

Hmm, directed by John Madden... I'd love to hear the commentary with the play by play!

2 comments:

Nani said...

I haven't seen it! I think I have it - I bought it when I was in Indonesia. G. Paltrow is in it, right?

I have to get back to reading about voles and their mating behaviour now...

How are you? Are you visiting Cali soon?

Boaz said...

hey Nani-
Yep, Gwyneth Paltrow. She gives a good performance. Let me know what you think of it.
Ahh the mating behavior of voles... sounds pretty exciting. I can't remember what they are, though. I have an image of a small pointy nosed rodent, but I'm not sure...

I'm surviving. Learning some non-linear dynamics.
I'll be out west at the end of Dec. Catch up with you then..
-Boaz