Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

The Big Doll House is a 'so bad it's good' 70's lady-prison thriller probably most notable for Pam Grier's debut performance. A dizzying selection of beauties are incarcerated in a sweaty Asian jail run by a sexually frustrated, sadistic warden. As the torture and ill treatment escalates they decide escape is their only option and manipulate a couple of rapey, moronic men to assist. As you might imagine the script and acting aren't up to much but there's enough violence, thoroughly un-pc humour and rakes of gratuitous nudity to make this low budget flick a classic of exploitation cinema.

Big Bad Mama is a Roger Corman romp starring Angie Dickinson, Skerrit and Shatner. A mother and her two teenage daughters embark on an audacious life of crime and mayhem, blasting their way across America with much enthusiasm, picking up a couple of dudes on the way to keep their beds warm. Despite the obviously tight budget there's plenty of action of one sort or another but it's real strength lies with Dickinson's dominating central performance, portraying the sassy, driven matriarch with such brio that it eclipses the failings of the rest of the cast. Another surprisingly accomplished and enjoyable Corman production.

Grey Matters

Having a low IQ seems to correlate with being politically Conservative, racist and homophobic, and though it's quite an obvious result I'm just really glad some scientists made the effort to confirm it. Thank you Brock Uni in Ontario

Nice bit about the under appreciated Abraham Maslow, via Mind Hacks.

Scientists may have sketched out how "sacred" beliefs differ from everyday thoughts. SciDaily

Some adventurous attempts to make sense of the Psilocybin experience, Neurophilosophy

Modest pdf article examining the brain differences caused by meditative practice, Reddit

Some boffins are fretting over the recent successes in cognitive enhancement techniques, particular direct noggin stimulation, via Oxford Uni

Another interesting brain boosting experiment using fMRI feedback appears to show learning without any intent.attention at all, TheAtlantic

Ketamine appears, from recent trials. to offer immediate relief from depression, Reddit

Locust's brains are helping us reveal the mechanisms behind our associative memories, SciDaily

Haitian Zombification still engenders study, Mind Hacks

Review of a recent compilation of papers on Panpsychism, Reddit

Mini Anime Medley

Sonic Succour

Dumb Bottery & Fun Pottery

A young boy has to spend the summer with his feckless, effete father in the robot battling slice of cheese that is Real Steel. Essentially a remake of Stallone's Over The Top with snazzy cgi automata replacing the mulleted musclemen, this cliche riven tale has a Spielberg-ish focus on the father/son bond instead of concentrating on a future where robots duke it out for sport. Jackmon and Lilly's performances are competent enough but are only a smidge more emotional than the bots they tinker with and the script is just as functional. I know this wasn't made with a 30 plus viewer in mind and I'm not sure why even bothered but even for a kids film this was anodyne, stunningly formulaic guff. Definitely not the droids I was looking for.

Perversely the Harold and Kumar franchise seems to improve with it's sequels and A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas was the tightest and funniest yet. The pot heads have drifted apart but an adventure to track down a replacement Xmas tree brings them back together and they stumble their way through an increasingly unlikely series of escapades. With a sharp script and an admirable gag rate this inane, simple minded comedy kept me chuckling throughout and though it's not going to appeal to everyone it knows it's target market and has no lofty pretensions. I'm sure this won't be the last we'll see of the pair.

Found Footage Flim Flammery

The Tunnel is a crowd-funded, VODO distributed, found footage horror from Down Under and it's actually quite good, well a few bits gave me the willies. A news crew decide to poke about some abandoned subway tunnels after some vagrants and yoofs go missing but they soon realise their mistake when the sound man is snatched by an elusive entity. Torn between a good story and their own safety they remaining crew stumble around for while before it becomes apparent their stalker is still hungry. Nicely made, especially given it's titchy budget, and reasonably acted this has plenty of vim and despite the talking head spots that intersperse the action, it still manages to build the fear quite nicely.

7 Nights of Darkness, though just as cliched as Tunnel, doesn't manage to muster the same amount of atmosphere. Reality TV contestants are challenged to stay a week in a haunted hospital and the skeptical bunch are soon made aware there's some truth to the tales of spectral kids and malignant entities. Populated with a clutch of stereotypical characters and some ropey actors wheezing life into the predictable script this limps along with little imagination or merit.

Star Trekkin' & Other Distractions

Beautiful false dawn captured in India, APOD

Russia's failed Phobos Grunt probe has returned home, somewhere off the coast of Chile. But they're looking to blame the Yanks for it's demise due to it maybe getting zapped by an asteroid radar. NS

The deepest vents yet have been discovered in a Caribbean rift and they're teaming with life, SciDaily

Some German's have built the tiniest storage device ever - an 8 bit magnetic data store made out of 96 atoms. SciDaily.

Umami was the fifth but now tongue-focussed scientists have discovered the sixth taste, fat. ImapctLab.

Interesting article about Octopi & consciousness, Reddit.

NASA refutes ufologist's assertion that a triangular UFO was snapped by Stereo-B, Daily G

Boffins have been noodling about investigating the links between our body clock and schizophrenia, NS

Another stunning video from the ISS, Reddit

Glorious Gothics

Iris Murdoch's faux gothic fable The Unicorn is a intriguing, tense read about a woman seemingly house-bound in the wilds of west Ireland after a love affair gone wrong. The airless status quo is disrupted with the arrival of a young tutor, who's intrigued by the mysterious characters and circumstances behind the curious living arrangements and it's not long before she's tempted to resolve the situation once and for all. It's beautifully written and Murdoch builds a disturbing, atmosphere pregnant with actions and words unsaid and it builds nicely until it's inevitable crescendo. It's a wonderful read but I'm beginning to suspect that I'm missing some of the symbolism or subtext that lurk beneath the surface of Murdoch's novels.

Rudyard Kipling's Strange Tales is a compendium of peculiar little stories, set mostly in colonial era India. There's ghosts, ghouls, werewolves, pits of death and a miasma of weirdness all written with a direct, sparse prose, though old fashioned and a little stilted, somehow manages to imbue the events with an extra chill. Few books have ever actually frightened me and Kipling's is no exception but his strength lies in the descriptions of the psychologies of the disturbed and perturbed characters as they face unsettling, incomprehensible scenarios. Maybe a little patchy but definitely worth a look.