Obligatory Post on the Oscars

The Ex-Girlfriend used to work in “the industry.” Thus, she is watching the Oscar stuff on tv. I have no intention of watching any of it myself. But my hearing is a bit too good and I am having trouble drowning out the tv. So naturally, my thoughts drift to movies…. A few random thoughts.

1. There are a lot of movies out there that deal with technical issues poorly. I don’t just mean in passing – there are plenty of movies for which bad physics, bad medicine, bad law, bad biology, bad geology, bad engineering, bad sociology, bad chemistry, bad political science, bad English, bad geography, bad psychology, or bad just about anything is central to the plot. I can’t think of any movie for which economics is central to plot, be it good or bad. Are there any? Am I wrong about this, or is there some reason why Economics isn’t important in the movies?

2. Movies about entertainment. Its possible for entertainment to transcend and create a real change in the short term or the long term, but it doesn’t happen often. On the other hand, engineering or physics or biology or… etc. all do change the real world. Put another way, movies are less important. And yet, society seems to value those involved in movie-making more than it values those involved in other activities. We’ll never see the same public adulation toward, say, a Nobel laureate in Chemistry as we’ll see toward a Leonardo di Caprio or Clint Eastwood. Doesn’t this lead to more people wanting to be actors and fewer wanting to be chemists?