Why every self-respecting monarch needs a genealogy and a spy service.

I recently had the misfortune of being reminded of a terrible film. Why do I subject myself to partially re-watching bad films? Because every now and then, bad films, like parables, yield wisdom and advice for the unusual situations people end up in.

Curse of the Golden Flower [2006] is one of those bad films. This film is directed by Zhang Yimou, the man who was also responsible for House of Flying Daggers, one of the worst films I've ever watched. In Chinese, the film is titled 滿城盡帶黃金甲, which roughly translates to "Whole City in Gold Armor." Why was it retitled as the "Curse of the Golden Flower?" Who knows? In addition, despite being a period piece set in supposed ancient China, all the women are wearing corsets that accentuates their cleavages.

Anyway... the film is basically a big imperial family drama with a lot of extras and large sets. A thinner than usual Chow Yun-Fat is The Emperor. The Emperor has the nicest hair, he really should consider doing a commercial for Head and Shoulders.

Liu Ye plays the 1st Prince. Jay Chou plays the 2nd Prince, he is supposed to the strong son, who is a capable general. Unfortunately, Jay Chou is a musician, and not much of an actor - so he comes off as a unconvincing peasant from Taiwan who can't properly speak Mandarin Chinese.

Some no name kid plays the 3rd Prince, who no one really gives a damn about. Gong Li plays the Queen (step-mother the 1st Prince, biological mother to the others). Why do I mention this? you know where this is going don't you?

The Queen and the 1st Prince have a sexual affair. The Emperor knows this, so he is having the Queen's daily meds poisoned. The Queen, getting sicker, suspects something is up, and hires an Private Investigator (PI) to spy on the Emperor. She also spends her time sewing golden chrysanthemum flowers.

The PI is a woman, and happens to be the wife of the Imperial Doctor (the dude responsible for mixing the Queen's daily meds with poison). Awkward?

Anyway - during one of her spying missions, the PI gets caught. The PI is brought in front of the Emperor, where everyone expects the PI to be executed. To everyone's surprise, the Emperor asks everyone to leave.

It turns out that the PI was the Emperor's first wife. Um... the 1st Prince's mother. Oh wait - I accidentally omitted the fact that aside from sleeping with his stepmother, the 1st Prince was also sleeping with the Imperial Doctor's daughter.

Oops.

The 1st Prince is not only fornicating with his father's wife, but also his half-sister. I think this dynasty is heading towards the likes of Egyptian Ptolemaic Dynasty and the House of Hapsburg. This is not a good arrangement. To cut the long story short, the Emperor has the Imperial Doctor, the Doctor's wife (the PI), and their daughter killed.

The 3rd Prince, that no one gives a damn about, kills the 1st Prince, and tries to force the Emperor to abdicate. That didn't work out too well, and he gets killed by blunt force trauma from the Emperor's gold loaded belt.

The sort of Queen stages a rebellion in the court yard. Thousands of men rush in, led by the 2nd Prince, wearing gold uniforms with chrysanthemum flowers. They're all slaughtered in the massive courtyard.

But in an EPIC fashion, the courtyard, littered with thousands of bodies, thousands of gallons gallons of blood, and who knows how many trampled pots and plants, are washed clean and disappeared in five minutes. Pretty amazing, I mean the cleanup is almost good enough to make this horrible film worth it.

So after the slaughter and cleanup, the Emperor forces the surviving 2nd Prince to dine with him and the Queen. While eating some tasty food, the Emperor offers the 2nd Prince a reprieve, but only if he is willing to feed the poison to the Queen. The 2nd Prince refuses the offer and offs himself.

The Emperor sort of pauses for a second, then resumes eating. Yum!

The "science" behind The Day After Tomorrow.

When I was writing about The Day After Tomorrow, I was reminded of something that always bugged me. The freezing of the flying RAF helicopters' fuel lines.

Something that always troubled me was that fuel lines are flowing and pressurized. Fuel tanks are also insulated. How could they freeze? The Day After Tomorrow simply demanded too much from me - I could not sufficiently suspend my disbelief to enjoy the film.

I shall seek to answer this question. Whether it is possible to freeze a flying helicopter's fuel system?

The current standardized NATO kerosene-based aviation fuel, the JP-8, has a freezing point of -47°C (-52.6°F).

I have a limited and rudimentary understanding of physics. So be gentle if there are glaring errors in my methods. Now, we know hat cooling is the transfer of thermal energy. I've never taken college physics, but my father once taught me the three methods of thermal energy transfer - convection, radiation, and conduction.

Because the fuel tank inside the helicopter and insulated from convention (it is internal) and radiation (rubber encased in aluminum), I will assume that conduction is primarily the method of which mother nature managed to freeze the JP-8 in the helicopter.

Due to my limited mathematical skills and the unavailability of schematics for the SH-3 Sea King helicopter, I will assume that the fuel tank is sphere, was not fixed internally, but was rather exposed to the outside world.

Applying Fourier's Law...






k = material's conductivity
A = surface area
Δt = time
ΔQ = quantity of heat
ΔT = change in temperature
x = thickness of conducting surface separating temperature gradient

We want to find out the ΔQ (quantity of heat).
Since the helicopters froze instantly, I will say ΔT will be 1 seconds.

So...





I will further assume that the JP-8 fuel was previously stored in an underground tank. The contents of the tank, being buried under ground, will reflect ambient temperature, which is typically at 10°C (50°F). Since the film claims the pocket of cold air was at -101.1°C (-150°F), we have a change in temperature (ΔT) of 111.1 Kelvins.

The tank, being made out of rubber compounds, should have a thermal conductivity similar to rubber (k = 0.16 W/(m·K)). I also found that the aviation industry thickness for a self-sealing fuel bladder is approximately 0.00216 meters.

Assuming that the tank was round, we can calculate the radius of the sphere, which will allow us to calculate the surface area of the sphere. The UK variant of the SH-3 Sea King holds 3700 liters or 3.7m^3 of fuel.














Now we just have to plug in the numbers!





ΔQ = 95,299.11 Joules.

So we now know that in the cinematic world of The Day After Tomorrow + my crude assumptions, around 95,299 Joules of heat could be transferred from the fuel tank to the cold air in one second!

If someone can instruct me on how to calculate the thermal mass of 3700 liters of JP-8 fuel at 10°C (50°F), we would be able to determine whether or not it was indeed possible to freeze the helicopter's fuel. But in the mean time, this will have to do.

Worst 5 films I've been unfortunate enough to see - Part 5.

1. The Day After Tomorrow [2004].

It took me a longtime to decide whether this film was worse than Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was really bad, and while I thought The Day After Tomorrow had better dialogue and acting... there were just so many things wrong with this film. The science is so wrong it trivializes the political views the film allegedly sought to promote.

The film begins with Dennis Quaid in Antarctica drilling ice core samples. The ice suddenly begins to crack and he nearly falls to an icy cold death. This was a horrible introduction for this climatologist/geologist - who apparently was completely unaware that the ice below him was unstable. Lame.

He then travels to this meeting and seeks to present his views on the longterm effects of global warming, but the diplomats at the UN scoff at his theories, and he goes home dejected. Maybe the politicians heard about his Antarctica misadventure.

The weather is highly personified in this film. It is evil. First it decides to destroy Tokyo, and Los Angeles. Then the weather decides it wanted to flash freeze a bunch of flying Royal Air Force helicopters. The helicopters apparently flew into a pocket of air at -150°F (-101.1°C), froze in midair and crashed. The crew members are instantly turned into icicles.

How is this possible? I do not know.

So basically Dennis Quaid's son is stuck in Manhattan in the cold. Dennis Quaid walks in the snow and makes his way from Washington, D.C. to New York City (in the process watching a friend fall through a glass ceiling in a snow-covered building).

The son, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, starts burning books in the New York Public Library. He and his friends fight off wolves (that somehow survived despite the massive temperature change), find antibiotics, and live off nachos and candy from vending machines.

Eventually Dennis Quaid arrives in New York, checks out the Statute of Liberty (frozen in sea ice), and they all get airlifted out of this frozen hell by helicopters.

This film was atrocious. Instead of awakening people to the potential dangers of global warming, this film probably did more to discredit the possibility that global warming may lead to massive and deadly environmental change. The crazy effects personified the weather as this cool calculating freezing murderous machine.

It also failed as a scare film because it personifies the weather as this rapidly changing, human chasing, freezing monster, that kills everyone in its way. Unlike Friday the 13th movies (which discourages teenage sex by killing off fornicating teenagers), The Day After Tomorrow seems to say... you're screwed no matter what you do! You're all screwed because politicians didn't listen to celebrity climatologists! Wa ha ha ha ha!

Worst 5 films I've been unfortunate enough to see - Part 4.

2. Pearl Harbor [2001].

"Why does Michael Bay gets to keep on making movies?"
     - words of wisdom from Team America.

The film begins with two kids, Big Idiot (Ben Affleck) and Little Idiot (Josh Hartnett). Being a pair of idiots, they accidentally start the engine of a crop duster, take off on the runway, land, and get in trouble. Little Idiot's pa disciplines him (child abuse by modern standards), and Big Idiot calls Little Idiot's pa a "stinkin German" and threatens to bash his head in with a piece of wood. Little Idiot's pa seems hurt, because apparently he fought the Germans in the First World War (1914-1918). How is this relevant? I dunno.

Fast forward a decade + several years.

The two idiots are flying in Curtiss P-40s - narrowly avoids crashing their training aircraft and get grounded by Jimmy Doolittle (Alec Baldwin). Alec Baldwin offers Big Idiot the opportunity to fly in "Eagle Squadron," a group of "volunteers" to support the United Kingdom in the Battle of Britain. Five minutes into this "Pearl Harbor" film, there are already big glaring historical inaccuracies.

Because Curtiss P-40s did not enter service in the United States until 1941, we can postulate that this was sometime in 1941 (but before Dec. 7). In 1941, the historical Jimmy Doolittle did not command any training unit or other US Army Air Corps flight squadrons. What is going on?

So Kate Beckinsale is a US Navy nurse, who gets together with Big Idiot. She has an English accent, I think she is a spy. Big Idiot, being an idiot, decides to leave America and Beckinsale and heads to Britain. Big Idiot gets shot down and crashes in the English Channel.

Meanwhile, Little Idiot and Beckinsale have been reassigned to Hawaii, and they get word that the Big Idiot has crashed and is dead. Little Idiot and Beckinsale get together and soon after, Beckinsale is expecting a baby.

*GASP* Bid Idiot returns from the dead - claiming he escaped from occupied France. Big Idiot naturally gets pissed that his buddy, Little Idiot has been sleeping with Beckinsale - so they get into a bar fight. It is now December 6, 1941.

The next morning, the "day of infamy" begins as the Imperial Japanese Navy and begin their air raid on US assets on Pearl Harbor. Cuba Gooding Jr., like all African-Americans of that era, was relegated to being Mess Attendant in the US Navy. Despite having no previous training in aerial defense, he takes over an anti-aircraft gun and shoots down a Japanese plane. Horray!

Big Idiot and Little Idiot hop in some planes, take off, and shoot down several Japanese planes (even causing them to crash into each other - because you know, the Japanese are stupid). They get praised for their work, and get assigned to a "secret mission" under Doolittle (the actual Doolittle Raid concept wasn't conceived until January 1942 but whatever!).

Before the two idiots leave for the secret training - Beckinsale tells the Big Idiot that she is pregnant with the Little Idiot's baby. She also says she hasn't told Little Idiot, because she wants him to concentrate on the mission.

So why does she even tell Big Idiot?! To distract him? This lady has more issues than a magazine stand.

Apparently, because the United States does not have enough qualified pilots. The two idiots, having prior experience in light fighter aircraft, are trained to fly B-25 bombers. Despite being idiots, they qualify as B-25 pilots in record time, and learn how to fly a medium bomber off an aircraft carrier.

The Doolittle Raid (both historically and in the film) was essentially a one-way mission, where 16 B-25s were launched from an aircraft carrier, dropped their bombs symbolically on Japan, and crash land in China.

Big Idiot crash lands in China, and gets arrested by the Imperial Japanese Army (oops). The Japanese soldiers are about to execute the Big Idiot, when in a WTF? moment, the Little Idiot shows up in his plane, shoots up all the Japanese (without hurting the Big Idiot), and crashes. Then the two idiots get captured again - Little Idiot naturally sacrifices himself and Big Idiot escapes (presumably with the help of the off-camera cinematic Chinese).

Big Idiot returns to America and settle down with Beckinsale and raises Little Idiot's spawn.

On behalf of the cinematic Chinese people, I apologize for for the return of Ben Afflick. They should have sent him to Vladivostok where Comrade Josef Stalin could have interned him until after the war.

This was probably Michael Bay's worst movie (that says a lot). As usual, Ben Afflick is useless as an actor (his best performance was Good Will Hunting [1997], where he "pretends" to be an idiot from Boston). It was a waste film, and a waste of Alec Baldwin and Cuba Gooding Jr.'s acting talents.

Pearl Harbor sucks.

Worst 5 films I've been unfortunate enough to see - Part 3.

3. House of Flying Daggers [2004].

I must confess say this that this particular film, was for the most part, beautifully shot. There were a lot of visually pleasing sets and landscapes. Zhang Yumou is a very good Chinese director and cinematographer, and has a good eye for stimulating color (his other works include Raise the Red Lantern, The Story of Qiu Ju, Hero, Curse of the Golden Flower - as well as being involved in the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony).

However, it was a disappointment because the acting was so mediocre that it distracted the audience from the film. I suspect that it was better received in non-Mandarin Chinese speaking markets because the audience couldn't understand what the actors and actresses were saying anyway - so bad acting was not as noticeable. But the film was universally criticized in Chinese-speaking markets.

So uh... basically the film is set in the end of the Tang Dynasty. There are a bunch of anti-government rebel groups, one of which is called the "Flying Daggers" - whose members naturally throw daggers.

Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro are two law enforcement officials for the government. They seem to get along. Together they arrest Zhang Ziyi, who is a member of the "Flying Daggers" despite being blind. Andy then tells Takeshi to "escape" the prison with Ziyi, to gain her trust so the law enforcement officials can infiltrate the secret organization.

Andy Lau is Cantonese. Takeshi Kaneshiro is a Japanese/Taiwanese mutt. Naturally they have horrible accents when speaking Mandarin - and sound like idiots when they read their lines. For those who don't speak Mandarin, imagine casting Tom Cruise to pretend to be a German in Valkyrie, only the entire film was in German.

Oddly enough, Zhang Ziyi, who is from Beijing, can't read her lines worth a damn. She accents and tones are all in the wrong places and sounds like a nervous schoolgirl reading a textbook out loud in class.

Maybe the director is trying to explain why the Tang Dynasty fell apart? In the same way that the attempted assassins in Valkyrie selected a one armed, three-fingered, half-blind man to set the fuses for an explosive device to kill Hitler. FAIL.

Back to the film... Takeshi "rescues" Ziyi from the prison, and they go off running to the secret "Flying Daggers" location. During which they are pursued by Tang Dynasty soldiers. Some are in on the plot - so they pretend fight and pretend to be killed by Takeshi. Others are not - and he is forced to kill them.

They fight in some beautiful bamboo forests (I'll imagine they were stung by a lot of mosquitoes) - then fight on some Ukrainian steppes. Both Takeshi and Ziyi, due to the tension and stress, have increased cortisol and adrenaline levels and misinterpret it as love and decide to make out.

The duo eventually arrive at the "secret location" - but Takeshi, instead of being greetedas a rescuer, is detained. They knew he was an undercover cop, and *GASP* Ziyi is not really blind and was in on the con the whole time. Apparently Andy is a undercover "Flying Dagger," and sent Takeshi on this suicide mission to weaken the government.

The story then nosedives into the empty swimming pool.

Andy and Ziyi were previously lovers. But now due to the elevated cortisol and adrenaline levels, Ziyi thinks she is in love with Takeshi. So instead of killing Takeshi, Ziyi releases him. But Andy was spying on them - and jealous that Ziyi is now infatuated with Takeshi, he fatally injures Ziyi and starts a day long fight with Takeshi.

The duo fight in what appears to be central Europe (birch forests can be seen in the background), and fight so long that snow falls and before you know it they're bleeding in a foot of snow. It was actually a pretty scene, but it makes me terrified of the Chinese director - who is big on symbolism. Maybe he is hinting that the Tang Dynasty extended to Ukraine and therefore Ukraine is a part of China.

At the end of the film, both of them sorta fight over Ziyi, she dies anyway - Andy walks off and Takeshi weeps.

The End.

Worst 5 films I've been unfortunate enough to see - Part 2.

4. Batman & Robin [1997].

This film was so bad the only things I could remember without referring to Wikipedia were the rubber nipple suit and Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzeneger). After I read the Wikipedia plot summary, I could still barely remember what that stupid film was about.

So George Cloony (Bruce Wayne-Batman) would rather hang out with Christopher O'Donnell (Robin) instead of Elle MacPherson (Bruce Wayne's girlfriend). They act like brothers, but sorta have some sort of repressed sexual tension, and then get mad at each other over Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman). I couldn't figure out if they were jealous of each other, or Poison Ivy. But in any case - they eventually resolve their dispute and get back together as Batman & Robin.

Speaking of Poison Ivy - she was a botanist gone mad to become a sort of a polar opposite of a vegan. Like a crazy animal hater who wanted plants to take over the world. What was that about? How did she eat and survive?

The Governor of California wanted to freeze everybody because his wife has some strange disease so he froze her. I guess he was a misunderstood villain who really wanted to just show the world his love.

I don't have much more to say. This was a horrible movie. It was so bad I couldn't really apply myself to summarizing it through Marxist lenses or attempt to find humor in it. Schwarzeneger's political opponents should just distribute free copies of this film before the next election - the mere fact Schwarzeneger took on this film shows bad judgment.

Worst 5 films I've been unfortunate enough to see - Part 1.

Inspired by an anonymous person (I've assigned the codename "Echo Sierra"), I'm starting a five-part miniseries about the worst 5 films I've been unfortunate enough to see.

5. Titanic [1997].

Lamest chick flick ever to win any awards. Here was a big ship that everyone knew was going to hit an iceberg and sink. It begins with an old lady, Rose, who is getting all sentimental on this exploration vessel that is revisiting the Titanic. She has this diamond.

The only avenue for story development and suspense was about Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) - but 15 minutes into the film, it was obvious that Jack would die because Rose was the lone survivor on that modern ship having a flashback and getting all sentimental about the Titanic.

The film then basically shifts to a plot line resembling Soviet-era cinema. An epic battle between the proletariat Jack against the bourgeoisie Billy Zane (Rose's fiance). Billy Zane gives Rose a diamond, but Jack emerges victorious by wooing the petite bourgeoisie Rose. And they make out in a 1912 Renault CB Coupé de Ville, sealing the proletariat's final revenge (it also goes to show how old the Titanic was - when Renault made cars were worth importing to America).

From that point on - the ship hits the iceberg. The head engineer discovers how bad the situation is, the captain gives the order for everyone to abandon ship. The movie reintroduces the class struggle again - as the crew seals the poor Irish passengers in the lower decks, while the wealthy bourgeoisie and their petite bourgeoisie spouses and servants get to escape on the lifeboats. Some members of the proletariat nevertheless overcome and triumph - and convinces some members of the petite bourgeoisie join the proletariat in their struggle.

After that epic class struggle, the ship resumes sinking and we see the best scene from the entire movie. Which I call "The Propeller Guy." Basically as water is rushing into the bow of the ship, the stern lifts up above the water, exposing a large portion of the keel, the rudder, and propellers. People at the tip of the stern start losing their grip, and there is this stunt man who is forced to let go of the ship's rails and plunge into the ocean.

I assume that the special effect people and post-production nerds involved in the project hated the rest of the film as much as I did - so they did the scene and CGI-ed the stunt man to bounce on the propeller on his way down. Many people believe it was the best scene of the movie. Don't believe me? Google does not lie.

The scene was so good this dude made a parody interview with "The Propeller Guy", which I encourage you to watch. The specific scene starts at 5:53.

So after that awesome scene, the ship resumes sinking. People scream, shout, and die. Jack and Rose fall into the water, and they swim around in the cold Atlantic. Jack finds a piece of driftwood, Rose climbs on. Jack hangs on nearby and freezes to death. He then magically sinks.

Now I'm pretty sure some of you have heard me rant about the unrealistic nature of this, as frozen dead people do not sink. But I've realized the errors of my conclusions. I assumed that Jack was not weighed down.

It is my hypothesis that he had looted all the bourgeois' jewelry and either swallowed them or kept them in his pant pockets & boots. It would explain why he sank like a lead anchor, or wasn't able to get upon other driftwood/swim to a lifeboat/climb on the driftwood with Rose/any other possible self-help measure.

So then the flashback stops. Rose goes all crazy, and throws the diamond into the Atlantic. Why did Rose toss the diamond into the Atlantic? I do not know. She could have donated it to a museum or charity or something, maybe create an auction for the shipwrecked people of the world? But I'm guessing she had returned to her petite bourgeoisie ways.

So that concludes the fifth worst movie I've been unfortunate enough to see. Tomorrow, I will naturally resume the series and discuss the fourth worst movie.