"Lasiurus": 2018 short previews today's apocalypse (Omeleto)

Omeleto offers Leonardo Missorion as the young man in “Lasiurus”, directed by Marcus Alquero,

A young man seems unaware that doomsday is happening around him.  He is alone in a grocery store, comes come and finds a note to look at his phone.  His girl friend has locked herself in another room. 

 Then he sees the bats, and runs to one upper study left.

  

How appropriate now (the film was produced in 2018).  

WSJ: "How Scientists Are Trying to Develop a Coronavirus Vaccine"

I thought I would share a “short” from the Wall Street Journal on a hopeful development regarding possibly a quick vaccine against COVID-19, the Wuhan Novel Coronavirus   Jason Bellini narrates.

  

  

The official title is “How Scientists Are Trying to Develop a Coronavirus Vaccine.”

  

Scientists design vaccines on a computer based on uploaded RNA genetic codes.  The great hope is that this time there will be a “rapid response vaccine” where the body’s T-cells are encouraged to make their own test antigens that mimic COVID-19 antigens. 

  

The second part of the short also described how a nucleic acid vaccine could work.  It also instructs the body’s white cells with messenger RNA.  This work goes on at NIH in Bethesda, MD, 

  

Of course the patent needs an intact cellular immune system.

   

The video suggests that a trial vaccine could be available in bout four months.

Quentin Tarantino: How to Write and Direct Movies

“Quentin Tarantino: How to Write and Direct Movies”, from The Director’s Chair.

He explains how “Kill Bill” comes from “me”.  He says his movies are little autobiographies stuck in his multiple genre worlds. Remember the bizarre reference to Clark Kent in the second film. 

He says in a novel you can start in the middle of the story. So his movies are structured like novels.  The ultimate film told out of chronological order (in seven movements, like a song cycle) that circles back on itself is "Pulp Fiction".  But Christopher Nolan often employs similar circular structures, and Tyler Mowery's screenwriting lectures use a plot circle diagram (as opposed to Hauge's which is stepwise).  

  

He says he puts little metaphors and epithets in his writing from his own life that only he knows about. Often the material seems like lucid dreams, barely outside of reality. 

"Coronavirus and Me" -- a young Irishman teaching English in Wuhan "escapes" to quarantine in the UK and tests negative at the end

“Coronavirus and Me: Ben Kavanagh’s Journey: From Quarantine in Wuhan to Wirral”. This is quite engaging and shows what has been going on with the pandemic. 

  

  

Mr. Kavanagh, from Ireland, had been teaching English.  He was out for New Year’s Eve when he got a text warning him of a few SARS-like cases in Wuhan.

  

The situation worsened, and most of his film is shot on the deserted streets of Wuhan in late January, as he puts on very elaborate masks and googles to go out for groceries.

  

He gets a chance for evacuation, rides a bus for four hours to Beijing and is flown to the UK, and place in a well-supported hotel-like quarantine in Wirral, UK.

  

Finally, he gets out.  There is a second video where he reports testing negative. He mentions the 24-day outlier case, where others complained he should have stayed 10 days longer.  At some point this has to stop. 

  

Christos Lynteros writes about how in Asia use of face masks, which may not be that effective, show “solidarity”. 

  

Wikipedia attribution link, CDC diagram of COVINT-19, CCSA 4.0. 

"Paper Boy": black and white short film from festival circuit in India charms with its simplicity

“Paper Boy”, from Pocket Films, and Idiot Box films, is a 15 minute short film from India, and won a prize in the Kolkata (Calcultta) film festival and various other fesitvals in India.

  

  

It is directed by Amilet Matra and stars Raja as the boy, and is filmed in black and white Cinemascope.

   

A 10 year old boy delivers a small local newspaper in the slums and runs into touching sights that tourists miss (because they never come to the slums), like a ferry, and pigeons.  Finally a customer throws down a bicycle pump with a paper as a present.

Here's JIFF link to a slum picture. 

   

I was reminded of “The Bicycle Thief”, Italian film in the late 1940s.
    

By Arun Kumar Jena / Arnabchat - https://www.flickr.com/photos/arnabchat/103000299/in/set-72057594068528736/, CC BY 2.5, Link

"Proof We're Living in a Simulation" according to Connor Franta

“Proof We’re Living in a Simulation” (2018), by Connor Franta

Connor experiments with dynamic screenwriting (voiceovers), like “Adaptation”, as he ad-libs after finishing a run in Beverly Hills.  He says he barely missed getting hit by a (driverless) car.  Maybe his own simulation saved him.  His gams are in great shape.

He mentions Pride.  It’s been a while since I’ve watched him.

  

But let’s have some real science.

"Parasite" is first foreign-language film to ever win Best Picture, as politics covers up the Oscars tonight

This was the night for politics at the Oscars, perhaps, as Kate Cohen predicted in the Washington Post (for the 92^nd Academy Awards). 

At the end, “Parasite” , Boon Joong Ho’s satire in Korean, became the first foreign language film to ever win Best Picture.   While the rich family was away, the caretaking family found the gangsters in the bomb shelters set up anticipated Kim Kong Un.

  

The link for the Oscar winners was here on ABC Go: 

Joaquin Phoneix, after winning best actor for “Joker”, gave an impassioned speech about not only intersectionality, but about our not being the only species (yes, orcas are people and should have the rights of humans) and even did a guilt trip about putting milk in his coffee.

Brad Pitt ranted about the impeachment "trial", as reported in many rags.
 
The Kodak Theater in LA is really big, like an opera house. They had rainstorms earlier this evening, and now the parties start.  WJLA Good Morning Washington will cover it at 4:25 AM Monday.