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Haunting Images of Oblivion: See the Film Before You Get Spoiled

Don’t read that 2011 press blurb about Tom Cruise’s latest movie, Oblivion, if you haven’t seen the film. It gives away some of the best twists in a pretty satisfyingly twisty and stylish science fiction outing. It may show up as a link on GooglePlus; I wanted to see what had been written about the film back when the project got Tom Cruise to commit and was shocked to see that the premise and biggest surprise twist was awkwardly given away.

What I found satisfactory about the film was that I was still trying to work out the “bedrock premise” about 3/4 through the run time. I’m a long-time science fiction fan, and I’ve been disappointed before by big-action blockbuster “SF” stories that are just popcorn delivery vehicles IN SPACE.

The cinematography is both beautiful and disturbing, contrasting the dystopian Earth and the sky-dwelling utopian lives of a very effective team (Cruise’s character is a “drone repair” tech, partnered with a beautiful communications tech).

Don’t read any reviews, don’t look it up, just go and see the film and form your own conclusions. I’ll say that Tom Cruise is NOT a favorite actor or action star of ours, but my husband David and I have formed a kind of grudging respect for the work he’s done in high-tech action movies, although personally I liked “Minority Report” (based on a story written by an actual SF writer) much more than any of the Mission: Impossible movies, which are simply spectacle.

David remarked, as I was writing this, that he also really liked the movie, “even though it had Tom Cruise in it.” So don’t let your pre-conceived notions hold you back: see the movie with an open mind, and prepare for it to be blown.

Watch the film, and ponder what happens to all of human creativity and culture as you do. Think about art and music, as well as architecture and literature. Think of all the precious things that could be lost in a planet-wide cataclysm, whether we bring it on ourselves, or it’s brought upon us via some sort of deus ex machina.

Here’s the old preview from Huffington Post, which does NOT contain the spoilers in the quoted portion, but does ruin the premise if you read it and haven’t seen Oblivion. The movie turns out to be quite a bit more than the press blurb leads you to believe; see it, then come back here and tell me what you thought. I checked Twitter last night for comments on the film, and it was about 3/4 “good movie” and about 1/4 “durr, whut?” comments.

While the rapture hasn’t quite gone down yet on Saturday, the end of human civilization on Earth as we know it will have already come and gone in Tom Cruise’s newest film commitment.

via Tom Cruise Joins 'Oblivion,' Joseph Kasinski's Sci-Fi Film.

Rough Night: Charleyhorses And Such

Last night was a rough one; I’ve been having some muscle pain lately (probably due to not having my work chair/office desk/keyboard/mouse set up at the right positions relative to each other). But then all of a sudden I got a massive charleyhorse in my left calf.

Ow. Ow. Ow.

I’d been restless (we saw Oblivion last night, the images were striking), and I was tossing and turning a little. When it hit, the pain was kind of a mental shock, after being mostly comfortable and drowsy and mostly asleep.

I thrashed around and groaned and cried out, and David woke up a little. For a few sweaty moments, I wondered if I’d have to really wake him up to go to the emergency room – the pain was that bad. Then I decided to try to get up, but was surprised to find I was feeling dizzy, too. Back to bed for a bit – the pain made me think I was about to faint. Then I tried to just stand and put weight on the left leg, and like a miracle, the pain finally ebbed, and I could feel relief (and probably endorphins) surging through me.

What the hell was that?

I got up again, drank some water, took some stuff, and decided I need to eat better, get more exercise, and so on.

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Stressed Out? How You Handle It May Predict Future Health Issues

Uh, my work life got a LOT more stressful recently, and it’s probably not healthy to scream at my computer with my phone mic muted.

Also: not healthy to go days without leaving the house.

Must. Do. Something.

In the latest research showing just how important the handling of stress is, a new study shows that having a stress-prone personality could seriously up your risk for heart disease.The new research, conducted in a large Danish population, found that people who are "mentally vulnerable" — meaning they are more susceptible to stress — are at a significantly higher risk for both fatal and non-fatal heart events. The studys findings were presented on April 18 in Rome at the EuroPRevent 2013 congress.Researchers measured "mental vulnerability" on a 12-point scale, looking at mental and physical symptoms that measured an individuals level of stress, and determined whether they had a personality that was more prone to getting stressed-out. A statistical analysis of nearly 11,000 individuals showed that mental vulnerability was correlated with cardiovascular events, both fatal and non-fatal, independently of normal risk factors like smoking, cholesterol and age.The researchers followed the Danish cohort, which consisted of 10,943 individuals initially free of heart disease, for nearly 16 years. Just over 3,000 fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular events were recorded during the follow-up analysis, and the data showed that the risk of cardiovascular events in the mentally vulnerable was 36 percent higher than in the non-vulnerable, independently of other risk factors.

via Vulnerability To Stress May Increase Risk Of Heart Disease, Study Finds.