Movies: Elysium

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - Today many places have "gated communities" or "gated cities" where the wealthy live sheltered and protected (wikipedia). You can find them in California, but also in Brazil, Argentina and other countries. The dystopian film "Elysium" developed this concept further (imdb). The rich live on a protected space station in a close orbit around the earth, the rest of the humanity spends their life on an impoverished earth.

It could have been an interesting topic, as for instance the Justin Timberlake thriller "In Time" (2011) showed. But Neill Blomkamp  wasted the theme. The scriptwriter and director of this botch delivered just an action movie to entertain unaspiring adolescent.

You don´t learn much about Elysium and the alleged superior technology & lifestyle. Instead the flick is full of fight scenes in the dust. Elysium isn´t science fiction, there is no gram science in it, the audience instead gets a bad rip off of "Mad Max".

Elysium also shows the greed of Hollywood brand names like grand dame Jodie Foster and Matt Damon who used this crap to stockpile their banking accounts.

Watching "Elysium" is a waste of time.

Movies: Europa Report

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - I am a connoisseur of science fiction. This genre speculates about the future by appreciating scientific possibilities. That separates science fiction from fantasy which manages without science. Unfortunately, today most of the so called science fiction books and movies are fantasy and not science fiction because they neglect science.

The movie "Europa Report" is one of the rare science fiction films and also one of the best (imdb). The thriller describes a human expedition to the Jupiter moon Europa with dramatic consequences.

The plot is based on real science and partly on data acquired by the NASA.  "Starting in 1995, NASA`s Galileo probe began a Jupiter orbiting mission that lasted for eight years, until 2003, and provided the most detailed examination of the Galilean moons to date", writes Wikipedia (wikipedia). Europa`s "surface is composed of water ice and is one of the smoothest in the Solar System.…… The apparent youth and smoothness of the surface have led to the hypothesis that a water ocean exists beneath it, which could conceivably serve as an abode for extraterrestrial life" (wikipedia).

Director Sebastián Cordero and script writer Philip Gelatt developed these insight into an inspiring drama showing the bliss of deep space travels but also the risks. The movie, that was shot entirely in a Brooklyn, New York City, studio, looks very realistic thanks to advanced digital effects. "Europa Report" also is an homage Kubrick´s "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) and Tarkovsky`s "Solyaris" (1972).

The cast -  Anamaria Marinca, Karolina Wydra, Michael Nyqvist, Christian Camargo and more - performed as believable scientists in an extremely stressful situation.

"Europa Report" is a role model for a perfect science fiction movie and I hope to see more of this quality - and the makers of this movie - in the future. The film is a must for every real science fiction fan!

Media: Why TV Is Getting Better & Better

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - It seems TV is getting better & better. For a longtime I believed movies were the real thing. I thought TV had a lower quality and was just a kind of distraction. But now I am addicted to series like "Breaking Bad" and "Homeland". I suppose those productions beat Hollywood movies like "The Great Gatsby" and ""Now You See Me" easily.

Today`s top-notch TV quality - at least for the premier productions - doesn´t come out of nowhere, of course. I guess it started in the 1980s with "Miami Vice" and "Twin Peaks". Neither really matched top movies like "Amadeus" or "Blade Runner" but they were definitely much better than the TV average. TV got stronger in the 1990s with "NYPD Blue" and "Sopranos". After the turn of the millennium series like "Rome" and "Lost" lifted the bar again. And then came "Mad Men".

As an economist, I am asking myself, why is that? I think the advance of TV is a part of the general evolution process. Everything gets better over time. Those who are around a while might remember how the world looked 4 or 5 decades ago. 

1. Since WW II the world has changed considerably and the wealth of most countries has been rising. People worldwide have much more money left to spend for their leisure activities compared to decades ago. Therefore a growing percentage of climbing incomes have been flowing to media companies, including TV channels.

Today producers of TV films and series have much higher revenues and profits and therefore much more money to spend than decades ago.  They can now invest a lot more money in writers, directors, cameras, actors, post production and more, lifting the quality of the productions.

2. Helpful are ongoing globalization and technological progress. Both trends have been creating new markets, enhancing the number of potential viewers. Today TV producers can sell their productions to a lot of foreign TV stations, as DVDs and as downloads.  Online companies like Netflix and Amzaon.com are unlocking viewers, who don´t bother to subscribe to TV channels like AMC and HBO.

Therefore the markets for TV productions are getting bigger and bigger. Now it makes sense for the TV producers to invest in their premium series as much money as Hollywood studios do with their aspiring blockbusters.

3. The high quality of TV productions also is a result of rising competition. A lot of US and foreign channels are wrestling now for viewers. With the help of Netflix & Amazon.com series like "Breaking Bad" and " Homeland" are rivaling  U.S. and foreign productions like "Rectify" (Sundance Channel), "Game of Thrones" (HBO) and "The Fall" (BBC). 

4. Technological progress is also helping TV producers as it helps everyone.  Digital post production especially is reducing production costs and gives the producers more possibilities to realize their ideas.

Rising TV quality is also owed to a general human attribute: The capability and the will to learn with the aim to get better, the foundation of general evolution. Just like everybody, TV producers are learning from older productions, from their competitors and their own mistakes.

I am looking forward to the future and the TV series to come.

Global Politics: Basel III - Poison For The European Economy?

 

(Drivebycuriosity) -  Politics is often the enemy of the economy. "Basel III" is an infamous example for that. The term "Basel" refers to the regulation of European Banks by the European Community which is coordinated by the Bank of International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. "Basel III" covers banking regulations that will be implemented in the coming years. 

According to the Financial Times, banks in the EuropeanUnion will need to reduce their balance sheets by €3.2 trillions and raise nearly €50 trillions in capital over the next five years in order to comply with Basel III (seekingalpha  ft.com  ). That means that European banks have to trim back their credits by around €3 trillion in the coming years.

Holy cow! Europe is already in a recession. When the banks there will have to cut back their loans this could choke off the fragile upswing we are now spotting in Europe.

Cutting back credits to companies endangers their existence, at least it could hold them back from investing, challenging the whole European economy which is already frail.

Cutting back credits to consumers could stall the already weak consumer spending which could lead into a new recession.

Basel III is another example that politicians and especially the European Union are economically blindsighted and harmful for the economy.

Stock Market: China - When Does The Pessimism Bubble Burst? - An Update

(Drivebycuriosity) - Yesterday the price of oil jumped 2.5%. According to Bloomberg the energy market responded to economic news from China (bloomberg). Factory output there increased 9.7% in July. The acceleration in Chinese factory output followed a series of positive figures, Bloomberg also wrote (bloomberg). Retail sales climbed 13.2% in July, other indices showed that the sectors manufacturing & services both grew faster recently (businessinsider driveby). All data are signals that China is gathering speed again.

The stock market in China barely blinked. Yesterday the Shanghai Composite Index, which represents the Chinese stock market,  gained mediocre 0.36%. Year to date it dropped 9.6%. According to Bloomberg this index has tumbled 43% since its temporary peak in 2009 even that China´s growth didn`t fall below 7.5% in the recent 10 years (bloomberg).

It seems that China´s stock market is trapped by a gloomy sentiment (driveby). China bears like Jim Chanos, a hedge fund manager and notorious short seller, have been banging the "China crash drum" for years. Even the influential New York Times (Krugman column) joined the crowd, that predicts a "hard landing" of the Chinese economy (driveby). The majority of fund managers and other professional portfolio managers seems to believe them.

Hence pessimistic speculation overtrumps the positive facts. This is typical for a bubble where prices don´t reflect the fundamentals and instead are dominated by opinions. In this case the pessimistic herd caused a pessimism bubble.

I reckon that this bubble will increasingly be tested by more good news. China is benefiting from the Internet that lowers the cost of information significantly. Hence the world wide net helps the nation to catch-up quick to the Western standards.  "Industries including leisure, e-commerce and transportation are becoming a bigger part of the economy, supporting the government’s efforts to shift the focus of growth away from investment and exports", writes Bloomberg (bloomberg).

I would not be surprised if the China pessimism bubble would pop through the end of the year and the deeply depressed the Shanghai Composite Index would follow the upswing of the global stock markets.

Culture: A Visit @ Metropolitan Museum Of Art, New York City

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - Large cities offer many things to do. The museums you could find there are an important part of these delights.

Yesterday my wife, some friends and I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan (metmuseum). This is a huge palace which contains a lot of impressive collections, a reflection of the enormous wealth which is accumulated in New York City. 

 

The entry fee is optional - my wife and I spend just 2 bucks. The very limited costs are an invitation to pick just a part of the ample selections and to come more often for other exhibitions.

Yesterday we focused on their nice collection of European Masters. We enjoyed the work of Gustave Courbet, Henry Lerolle, William Bouguereau, Caspar David Friedrich and many more.

The museum wasn´t crowded, another advantage of the summer time, which gives free access to the paintings.

A visit there is highly recommended.

Movies: The Canyons

(Drivebycuriosity) - Hollywood movies cost usually 20 million dollars and more. Director Paul Schrader had only 250.000 bucks to make his film "The Canyons" (imdb). This project brought together 3 former Hollywood stars whose careers have been struggling. Paul Schrader, who once directed "Cat People" and wrote the script for "Taxi Driver", didn´t have any successful films in the recent years.  The author Bret Easton Elis, once famous for  "American Psycho", was almost forgotten and Lindsay Lohan made more headlines with scandals than with her movies.

My wife didn´t like the "The Canyons". She found plot and characters not interesting. Most of the professional reviewers and bloggers hated the film. But I found "The Canyons" passable.

Schrader & Elis (book & script) tell the story of Christian, a young and bored man, who lives from the money of his rich family. He is obsessed with sex and likes to play cruel games with other people. I think the plot is believable. The American culture has many hyper-wealthy families with a huge political influence. I guess they parent a lot of spoiled kids who consider life just as a game and other people as toys. This reminds me of Senator Edward Kennedy who once caused the death of a woman and got away with it (wikipedia).  The plot also reminded me of "American Psycho", just with less violence and more sex instead. Btw, "American psycho" was way less plausible.

According to the media, "The Canyons" was the first feature length movie for porn actor James Deen out of his genre. Deen is no Christian Bale ("American Psyho"), but he played a convincing Christian, because he was able to show the attitude of this kind of playboy.  Lindsay Lohan was a disappointment. I don´t get it why this boring actress attracted so much fame and why Schrader casted her.

"The Canyons" is a watchable movie but not good enough to restart the careers of Schrader, Ellis or Lohan.