Slashdot Mirror
De Niro Seeks Science-Oriented Film Scripts
farrellj writes "According to this CBC story it seems that De Niro is looking for the next 'A Beautiful Mind, Memento or Good Will Hunting.' The script must have a scientist, mathematician or engineer as the lead charactor...And a finished script with synopsis and writer's resume must be in by Nov. 1. Submission info in the CBC story above.
Now, who is writing the 'Cowboy Neal saves the world' script? "
We're still waiting for him to lose enough weight so we can fit him in a wide shot. Jeez.
"People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
- Gov. Jesse Ventura
How about a plot where he has to track down a /.er who makes first post?
I can just see it, DeNiro sitting in some basement in Michigan or wherever and writing some illegible code for an hour and a half...
The romance is there with the infamous Valentine's Day Proposal.
Hemos is the "good buddy"...
This is gold.
In what way was Memento a science-oriented film? How does it fit in with Good Will Hunting or A Beautiful Mind (which was good mostly due to Jennifer Connley -- how did she stay so damn good looking?).
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Enough with the Cowboy Neal stuff already!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
The unification of dialects into one widely-used language is vital to encouraging quick and efficient communication. The dialect of English used in the U.S. is one of the most standardized in history, with established rules for grammar and spelling. Dictionaries and style guides are widely available and at low cost.
I encourage the story poster to purchase one of these immensly useful tools and to make use of it when the spelling of a word is in doubt.
If this is what is on the frontpage today, I'd hate to see what got rejected.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
... Damn!, I'm always late with my great ideas.
Live web cams
...and it is known only as "Rocky and Bullwinkle". God bless Piper Perabo.
s200.org - visit it (me), love it (me).
a remake of "Flowers for Algernon." It'd be a fitting role for that retard of an actor.
--Chag
Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of these.
At least DeNiro is being honest!
God Fucking Damnit
This guy needs to be modded up funny
http://Lenny.com
4 great justice!
De Niro is looking for the next 'A Beautiful Mind, Memento or Good Will Hunting.' The script must have a scientist, mathematician or engineer as the lead charactor.
I never knew that Leonard was a scientist, mathematician or engineer.
Maybe he just forgot.
-cibrPLUR
Dr. Nuelhammer is ready for his closeup.
mathematician: do you have the formula?
deniro: you talkin to me?
mathematician: yes, give me the numbers please.
deniro: you must be talking to me, i dont see anyone else.
mathematician: yes, im talking to you, why is this such a problem fo you?
deniro: you got a problem?
mathematician: oh god.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
If he were Indian (or looked anything like G.H. Hardy to play another role), I think the movie of Ramanujan would be greatly impressive if done right. Read "The Man Who Knew Infinity", it's a good story.
I'd love to see a film showing the madness of the inventors at PARC inventing the future in which we now live. As far as characters you've got 'em in spades telling that story ! Butler Lampson, Bob Metcalf, Alan Kay, Gary Starkwheather...there's probably be a number of movies and stories you could tell. Not sure how compelling it might be a lay populace, but with characters that strong a writer might should (I would suppose) be able to taylor a story with commercial appeal...
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
A famous movie star decides to solicit for script ideas, but his innocent promotional ploy is posted on the front page of Slashdot. Chaos reigns! Suddenly his server is crawling under the load, and some poor, underappreciated engineer struggles valiantly to keep the Web server on the air while trying to convince his boss to switch to Linux.
Oh, and a number of hot women run around in tight leather outfits in slow motion for no discernable reason.
Now there's a science related movie that grips you.
One of my favorite science related films.
Gattaca maybe?
Or on the opposite end of the spectrum, Resident Evil.
'immensly'. heh. checked any of your 'useful tools' recently?
Here is a scene from his new computer engineer position UCLA. He trys to deal with he pondering computing issues and yet make a living.
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
I think Deniro should try his hand at this one.
Though Michael Douglas will be hard to surpass. Give the protagonist a Phd in computer science and this movie will be both current and relevant. Something most films are missing these days.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
By going back in time to yesterdays /. I've decided:
DeNiro should take over the Enterprise movie (you know it's coming). He can travel back in time ("S.T. IV: The Voyage Home"; "S.T. VIII: First Contact"), seize the power of life ("S.T. II: The Wrath of Khan"; "S.T. V: The Final Frontier"; "S.T. VII: Generations"; "S.T. IX: Insurrection"), and kill Count Bakula. Then Bakula can come back from the dead and take over "S.T. III: The Search for Spock"; "S.T. VII: Generations"; "S.T. VIII: First Contact").
Please kill me.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
Earth is about to be hit by a huge asteroid and the only way to save mankind it is to use something with a big enough mass to push the asteroid off its course.
That's when CowboyNeal springs into action (powered by the world's largest catapult, naturally).
In a dramatic sequence, he misses the asteroid completely. Humanity prepares to be obliterated (shots of Arafat and Sharon hugging, Bush in bed with Osama, etc.). But the scientists notice that, without CowboyNeal's mass, Earth's orbit has changed slightly, and the asteroid narrowly misses.
The film ends with a shot fo CowboyNeal landing on the moon and eating it.
RMN
~~~
It would be a blockbuster, fer sure, but due to limited resources (starving writer, y'know) my wordprocessor is also my web hosting machine and it keeps bogging down... wish I could figure out why.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I can just see it now. A three hour movie, and the first hour an argument about the agenda, the next hour is figuring out who should be there who isn't there, and the last hour is the sad realization that no one is going to use what you've come up with anyway.
I guess it has to be written in perl too, right?
Guy 1: "Sir this is the smartest man in the world"
DeNiro: "I know EVERTHING!"
-DeNiro Points to his head-
DeNiro: "It all in here"
Guy1: "Scientist have no idea how he fit it all in there"
-Stange Pause--
Guy2: "Sorry Sir, but you're not pointing at your belly"
Thats really all this is. What do Beautiful Mind, Memento and Good Will Hunting have in common? They all cleaned up on Oscar night.
I could see De Niro doing a really good Feynman. Feynman was brilliant above and beyond the call of duty, had a fascinating life and was kind of quirky. I could see De Niro doing him pretty well, with that New York accent.
haha
Dear Mr. De Niro,
Enclosed, please find my science-related screenplay, which I have endeavored on for YEARS.
The scene: The first woman president, played by Angelina Jolie, is sitting in the oval office with her closest advisors, including the secretary of defense, played by Arnold Schwartzenager.
Mrs. President: [shocked] I can't believe teh evildoers have developed these super computers that have enabled them to refine their nuclear weapons! I have heard these computers were developed using the free, open source operating system called -- Linux! We must, MUST! steal these computers for our own use!
Sec. of Defense: Ya, Madam President. EEEmagine eh behyovulf clooster of deeze!
Thank you Mr. De Niro, for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Anonymous Coward
PS - I really enjoyed your work in Taxi Driver.
PPS - What I really want to do is direct.
They could get Jon Lovitz to play me (I mean the software engineer).
How about http://wearables.unisa.edu.au/arquake/ /. editors add insult to injury and let drivel like this get posted on the frontpage. Who cares? Do you really think that there is a hidden talent lurking here with sci-fi movie script, and /. get into the movie credit list? I'm sorry, but ./ is slowly going to hell. Our "editors" need to show a bit more ambition, or maybe they just get a kick out of pissing us off?
Or the 800MHz iPaq?
Yes, I'm pissed off because my stories got rejected, then
Yes, feel free to mod me down, but this is just my humble opinion.
Super-tight movie. Very SF, but very social studies, as well.
If you liked Pi, you might like Cube (they even have it in blockbuster)
Also, ANGEL DUST.
Ohhh, soo good! It truly lives up to the phrase "phsychological thriller"
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
DeNiro: I'm looking to get a part in one of those movies like Memento or "A beautiful mind"
Agent: You mean a science related movie?
DeNiro: No, I mean an Oscar winner - it's been a while
Thanks, I'll be here all week.
XML causes global warming.
In what way was Memento a science-oriented film?
It wasn't and I'd wager that De Niro et. al don't really want a film about science or even about scientists. What they want is another standard Hollywood film (note that the 'prize', if you win, is help developing their scripts from filmmakers. That means the same morons who put out crap every year are going to help you "improve" your story.) that has the gimmick of having a scientist in it. Why? Because any reviewer who sees the film and likes it will inevitably draw comparisons or make some comment about A Beautiful Mind even if the only similiary is that both films star a scientist or mathematician. People will read the review and say to themselves "Hey, I liked A Beautiful Mind, so I'll probably like this new movie as well." This is a standard trick in Hollywood -- try to associate your crap movie with something the audience already has a fondness for.
A Beautiful Mind (which was good mostly due to Jennifer Connley -- how did she stay so damn good looking?).
You ever see her in "Career Opportunities"? You think she looks good now at 30-something, you should see her in that film when she was 21 or 22. Yow!
GMD
watch this
We need some sort of mutant hybrid.......
The body and 1 liners of Arnold.....
The brains of Linux or maybe Roblimo.....
I will code you up.....(FLEX)
Vote early. Vote often. Vote CowboyNeal.
Next year is the 60th anniversary of the most important battle in human history - Kursk.
At every point in that battle the USSR's armed forces outwitted and out fought the Nazis. Now, that is because of the great skills and abilities of the Red Army and Red Airforce by 1943. But it is also because of the superior intelligence available to the allies as a whole - and one man, Alan Turing, is responsible for that.
Kursk is little known and understood in the west - but it is worth stating this simple fact: it was the first time the Nazi blitzkreig was stopped in summer campaigning weather. It was a seminal event in human history that has been covered up by the cold war for too long.
But better than that, it was the moment when scientific rationality (by which I mean the triumph of intelligence and not soime bizarre Stalinist idea of 'scientific socialism') triumphed over the will to power.
There could be a great, epic, film here and I wish I could write it.
This is the way to attract writers about science and technology, require that the script be sent through physical mail.
De Niro needn't look any further than Broadway.
IIRC, the winner of the Tony award for best play, year 2001, was a
drama called "Proof" about a female mathematician.
Details, anyone?
A quick look at IMDB confirms that DeNiro does in fact produce movies that he doesn't act in. Of course he does act in most of the movies that he produces, but that doesn't change the fact that you are correct.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I can see Deniro as Wally....
I think an interesting movie would be about Philo Farnswoth (inventor of the television) and the battle he had with RCA, the company who tried to steal his invention.
Farnsworth basically invented television when he was in high school, but later on when he tried to develop it, RCA tried to steal his patents (they had a monopoly on radio then and wanted a monopoly on television). Also, it was the beginning of the end of the lone inventor bringing about innovations and the rise of new innovations being done in corporate labs.
The things you have to be in order to play a role as a geek (in movies or real life): (at least one)
;)
Fat
Squizofrenic
Plain ugly
arcade addict
Some other suggestions?
Is that anything like the famous Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man"?
Deniro shouting "NO! Stop! Its a cookbook!"
Cuchullain
(Yes I know it was saves the world, but this would make a better movie)
"If sharing a thing in no way diminishes it, it is not rightly owned if it is not shared." -St. Augustine
Yeah, I'd pay 8 bucks to see that!
make it so!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
This review, and this one, and this one all seemed to like it. But more importantly, Kip Thorne said when he saw Alda in Los Angeles that it was like spending some time with Feynman once again.
I know if QED opened within 200 miles of me, I'd go see it. Alda has done great work and Feynman's life was amazing.
Bill is an astronomer who writes scientifically orientated thrillers - 'Nemesis' is about a killer asteroid with an interesting twist, Bill is a specialist in impact catastrophes and this book really shows this off.
He's also released 'Revelations' - another thriller aroudn the theme of zero point energy, and most recently 'The Lure' takes an interesting angle on messages from other races....
Slashdot fans will love these, the hero in Nemesis is a Linux user too....
For a student film I thought it went all the way around: great effecs, great story, great climax, great ending.
I guess that means you are probably less inclined to check out Angel Dust!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
De Niro needs to remake Godzilla vs. Megalon.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/1 5/1833214&tid=134
The plot here is still thickening, but there probably won't be a resolution before November.
De Niro as a Bulgarian Nuclear Physicist...
BTW, I was there. And I took notes.
As a recently college graduate in mathematics, I have taken it upon myself to read a bunch of biographies of famous mathemeticians (almost an oxymoron outside of academia).
Has anyone else noticed that almost any famous mathematician (or one that is referred to as "great") was always more than a little strange and, oftentimes, a little crazy?
As someone who is always interested in seeing math and pure science appear as "cool", I am very glad to see movies like these being made.
"Good Will Hunting" and "Octobery Sky" are great examples of movies that show that scientists and mathematicians need not be regarded as "losers."
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
I remember he came to visit the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry with lil kids (I'm guessing nephews or nieces) when he was on location in Portland a few years ago. (And he said we have one of the best science museums in the world!)
So, we can guess he is sincere in his interest in science and giving scientists more limelight.
mark
--
Mark Chen | Web Developer | Oregon Museum of Science and Industry | www.omsi.edu
..De Nero plays the webmaster for an Internet techie news forum run by organized crime, title: The Modfather.
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
Coming to a theatre near you in 2004.
The Slashdot Effect
Robert Deniro, as an ex-CIA officer turned CTO for a small news service.
Matt Damon as the pimply faced recent MIS graduate who thinks he knows it all.
Angelina Jolie as the harsh but, fair yet extremely hot and burdening CEO.
They have 5 hours to construct a load-balanced webserver to survive the dreaded Slashdot Effect. They must balance usability versus IT security in a short time-frame while dealing with the issuses of creating a load-balanced network.
A daring and innovative story that appeals to a very small audience and no-one will go see because the only people that would be even remotely intrested in the plot hate the movie company that produced it and would simply cringe at all of the techincal errors in the movie.
Will they choose Linux or Windows?
Will they be able to get the new servers patched in time?
How do they set-up the routing tables?
Will they have enough ethernet cable?
Will the producer of the movie actually use realistic looking images on the screen instead of stupid eye candy crap like in "Hackers"?
Will the damn telco tech support ever get back to them about their connection?
You'll have to see it to find out.
I thought there were plenty of Script K1dd13z on Slashdot. There has to be some bash scripter... oh wait. Nevermind.
but I don't think that it's any different then A Beautiful Mind in the relationship it has with science.
...got rejected AGAIN. For those who actually read things of value, visit the crazy bastards who made this thing here. Be warned that it is in alpha.
s200.org - visit it (me), love it (me).
A coworker of mine happens to have been a classmate of hers in HS. When Requiem for a dream came out he told me "you know, on the last scene, the orgy one, well, the actress was my classmate and such." I thought he was telling me about the other one, but no. I told him: "you know, she's a protagonist, you know? Like, she's on the entire movie." The thing that makes me want to kill him is that he doesn't like her acting. I told him, she was brilliant in A beautiful mind, and that in my opinion she saved the movie; but he won't have watching the movie 'cos it's a Ron Howard shit.
Funny thing is, how in heaven did I, an Argentine, end up working in Argentina with an American that knows a celebrity? The world is very small.
Ha ha. Seriously, though, this might be a good time for a remake of that famous tale. The movie that exists ("Charly") is pretty laughable and dated in spots (like when he takes off for a cruise around the countryside on a motorcycle). And laboratory manipulation of living creatures is always in the news these days. Seems like the time is right for a well-done version movie version of that story. Can you imagine the power of a film that shows a good actor knowing that he's slipping back into his former self and being powerless to stop it. A good treatment could make a really chilling contemporary tragedy.
GMD
watch this
it said "The script must have a scientist, mathematician or engineer as the lead charactor..."
not
" The script must have a dork as the lead charactor..."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Place: Purgatory
;)
The Objetive: Geek Heaven
The Conditions: Be judged by a jury formed by the great intellects of our history, Michelangelo, Socrates, Lincon, Freud, Newton...
The plot: An analisys of what the dead person did in his life.
The Characters: CEOs of Worldcom and Andersen, RIAA members, corrupt politicians, Bill Gates...
I think this could revive some lost values.
Freud to Bill Gates: Does this picture of a penguin reminds you of your mother?
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
Why not just do a Hawking biography and be done with it?
That could be a good film. I don't honestly know anything about his life story but 'getting to know him' and what he's accomplished through a movie might be a good way for people to stop thinking of him as that poor 'wheelchair guy' and see him as something more.
GMD
watch this
Just a title suggestion.
mem in MMII
It's nice and short, perfect for a screenplay.
It should be set in the past (the period for which it was written). It's a seminal work of unintended consequences, &c. 'nuff said.
We reserve the right to serve refuse to anyone. -management
Are you kidding? I've seen it so many times that I can close my eyes and see the scene where they make her ride the K-Mart horse thingie.
I was personally happy when she won the Oscar for her work. Let's face it, she's paid her dues in Hollywood. She had to do a lot of borderline-sexploitation stuff when she was younger. I mean, she spends the last third of that movie in a skin-tight white tanktop with no bra on underneath while her co-stars are practically drooling at her chest.
That having been said, I can pretty much replay all her scenes in that movie over in my head, too :)
GMD
watch this
Microsoft has been having this infromation removed from some sites...
/a"
/a"
a) Click Start>Run>Regedit
b) Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\wpaevents
c) Double-click OOBETimer
d) Remove the 'ca' part from the value. (Changing or deleting any of the binary values
will accomplish the same effect)
e) Click OK and close regedit
f) Click Start > Run and type in: "%systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe
g) Choose the 2nd option (phone activation)
h) Click Change Product Key (at the bottom)
i) Enter your valid Corporate Product Key
j) Press Update and close the window
k) Restart your computer
l) Verify the change
After the workstation restarts, click Start>Run
Type in: "%systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe
Make sure the dialog box says 'your copy of windows is already activated'
Keys that should work with SP1:
38BXC-F2C4R-PXMXV-DBQXM-3C7V6
6G3J7-RQ233-FJGHD-GKYP4-QGKPG
6JQPJ-84CFG-JCBQP-PVRJP-9G24Q
6KYDY-JT4MB-6V3JQ-4KKFG-P6C63
7FMM3-W4FMP-4WRXX-BKDRT-7HG48
7G4H4-T4XXW-BVXTH-4QP4V-9CV28
8RCKG-36TH8-VWBGK-T3CB6-RHG48
BKRFY-XPMQP-Y8PTW-BP6JM-B76FJ
CHYVW-V63RT-67XVC-XJ4VC-M3YWD
CQKYH-GKDJC-MJTWP-FPTJX-PKK23
CWY3F-JGYHJ-W6KBG-3VYK7-DGG7M
CX7DD-4GX4Y-BTTR4-H88Y7-GQPWQ
D6T24-3FBGM-WTDG8-6Y3WP-77QRJ
DB4H8-DQJJB-KXMWP-GPJVY-H7P6W
F7GV4-B7JGY-Q2KQW-6R8BM-FR8D6
GP7DR-2T2CQ-JYW2M-DXTMG-DTQWY
HFVK4-TFWFG-4JKDH-H3FTT-8B23W
HRPR7-WGJFC-VPHRB-XVFRW-2KPWY
J3T66-JTP72-TGT7H-PMMWH-XM4K3
JFQYM-YJQFQ-VBRCY-4VV7W-QRXBY
KMM7J-FCXMM-WV8PG-6FQMD-CPTQD
KMTTB-68H32-8MKRK-GBHKT-RKCP6
I have come up with the most remarkable science-based movie script, but it's too large to fit into the text box.
It's about some guy named Pierre.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Good Will Hunting II: Hunting Season
Bonnnnnggggg!
well he was....
paranoia abound....
Read this brief summary about Alan Turing's life.
A serious, well written script documenting his incredible, tragic life would make A Beautiful Mind seem about as powerful as Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (not to knock Pee-Wee's Big Adventure - great movie, it's just no tour de force).
De Niro's gonna play Dick Feynman and it'll be a festival of dyspeptic grimaces.
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
Yes, yes - I see it now. Every startrek has a main enemy they introduce round season 2. How about (and given the time-frame here) we have the mafia. Lets face it there organised - why wouldn't they be out there with there space pirate henchmen and of course they will have the HQ on mars as per the standard draft of shit happens around mars [sci-fi rule #101]. O the potential is fantastic and not forgetting given the current trend in movies a lot of good gangster/mafia stereotyped actors are loosing out and not working. Such a move by the paramount studios would not only spice up Enterprise a bit (perhaps interject some humour) and get some cheap labour too boot :D.
She had to do a lot of borderline-sexploitation stuff when she was younger.
:-)
Speaking of which, have you seen "Mullhuland Falls"? Wow! I actually thought it was a good movie, too, but Jen Connolly in black lace lingerie made it fantastic for me
And just to be totally OT, I found a picture of Jen Connolly where she looks exactly like a friend of mine, whom I sadly never managed to hook up with.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
"Actor Robert De Niro is inviting screenwriters with an interest in science to send their scripts to his film production company."
"Two winning writers will get financial assistance, along with help developing their scripts from filmmakers and scientists. At least one of the scripts will be read at De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival in 2003, and a film based on one of the screenplays will debut at the 2004 festival."
Aside from the inane comments of Doron Weber, this sounds like a great opportunity for aspiring screenplay writers. And I love the fact that they are promoting science (definitely something in this country that needs MASSIVE PROMOTION!)
I do hope that De Niro stays away from the "Hackers" / "Gen X" type kiddie movies that promote large corporations and their view, rather than the truth; and goes for something serious and honest... maybe a story based on Kevin Mitnick or something chronicling the birth of the Internet (definitely room for characterization...) or a comedy based on BOFH.
it would only become exciting if they made it "fictionalized" when one of the PARC guys goes postal gutting the exec's at Xerox for denying that this would be the way of the future, castrating Jobbs for stealing their ideas and calling it a Macintosh, and then cutting out Billy's tongue and his arms before shoving a chainsaw into his chest.
Ahhh, my Homie.
I used to like actors like Bob De Niro and Nicholas Cave quite a lot. But they have sold out. De Niro as Eddie Murphy's sidekick? Come on.. That last burglar movie sucked also. In fact, everything he has touched since Heat sucked.
I used to believe that actors like De Niro, Cage and Nicholson really had class. What a disappointment.
Unable to read configuration file '/bigassraid/htdig//conf/14229.conf'
Geocrawler error message.
All movies, even light-hearted comic romances, should have Joe Peschi beaten severely and buried alive.
You mis-spelled his name. It's P-a-u-l-y S-h-o-r-e.
GMD
watch this
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Identity Crisis
A screenplay
Copyright Robert Fagen
September 13, 2002
Twenty-five words or less
A software engineer loses himself in a maze of identity, language and symbolism, and emerges to rediscover himself and his family.
Setting
Present-day San Francisco
Synopsis
Often disconnected from those around him, and often relating to machines better than to people, Michael Slayton embodies the pseudo-functional life. He has material comfort and the apparent trappings of success, but yearns for something he cannot identify. He is married to his second wife, Kelly Coleman, and with her has had a daughter named Olivia, who is recently one year old. He has been reasonably successful financially, but has never really gained any traction in accumulating significant assets. He is currently between jobs. His wife is a senior manager at a manufacturing firm, and sometimes cannot understand the eccentric orbit of his emotional distance from her: sometimes quite close and often quite remote.
His wife recently has introduced him to the writings of Walker Percy. The first book of Percy that he read was "The Moviegoer," a novel about a man who lives life as if it were someone else's; a man who takes more from viewing a film than from being with a friend. In reading this, Michael sees much of himself in the attitudes and questions presented by the protagonist about what life is really about, and does what we do really make a difference.
Next on the shelf is "Message in a Bottle," a collection of essays by Percy on language, thought, and humanity's use of communication. The core idea is that language has always been studied in the abstract through the use of logic, semantics and analysis, and never empirically as a natural science. The concepts resonate with Michael, and he resolves to apply Percy's analysis to the creation of artificial intelligence.
Long a dilettante in the field of machine intelligence, Michael is familiar with the various ideas of neural networks, expert systems, decision trees, and other explorations designed to imbue consciousness in silicon. He has, however, rarely if ever built working systems in this area. He starts with Percy's notion of language as a phenomenon sprung whole from the human soul independent of behaviorist theory's ability to explain it. Motivated by what he sees in his daughter, he builds an engine, that he calls Oliver, that listens, and learns to respond in the way that his daughter has recently learned to listen and learned to respond. His system gathers symbols and returns symbols, and draws connections based on the response to it's own communication. As a concept is responded to, the use of that concept is reinforced. Eventually, concepts begin to bubble up from the engine and be expressed, which are responded to and are further reinforced.
Eventually, he exposes his machine child to the world at large, through the Internet. As his 'children' grow up, Olivia is much faster to apprehend the world, due to her wider and richer experience. Oliver, while growing in his ability to communicate, remains limited to the narrower world of electronic communication. Michael becomes more distant from his daughter, and closer to his 'son', until the day that Oliver also begins to assert his independence. All the while, Kelley has expressed growing concern over Michael's immersion in the simulation of a family while his real loved ones carry on independent of him.
Michael retreats farther from the real world as the real world continues to evolve without him. He eventually begins restoring older versions of Oliver to keep him company. Even then, as time passes, each new Oliver learns to want more than can be provided from his relatively static parent. Eventually, Michael gets the hint and re-engages with the world at large in general, and with his wife and daughter, in particular.
Not A Sig
Hey dudes, I found an NYT article that illustrates the basics to any good scifi movie here. Get those pencils going, it's easier than you think!
rm -rf slash-code/
From here to there and there to here funny things are everywhere.
Humm..... Robert De Niro as Bobby Shaftoe? Or Randy Waterhouse?
-- www.primeharbor.com
Requium for a Dream.
ass to ass, ass to ass, ass to ass, ass to ass
Karma: It's not just a good idea. It's the law.
I don't really pay attention to famous people, so could somebody explain who this "De Niro" character is, and why I should know about him?
thanks.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
And it being Hollywood they could arrange to have Galois survive the duel and have a happy ending.
-- SIGFPE
paul
#!/usr/bin/perl /usr/bin/DeNiro/MovieScript.pl ...
# filename:
# somebody had to stoop this low
# Script may need editing, currently it lasts slightly over 2 hours
$timer = 0;
$count = 7201;
while ($timer $count) {
$time++;
print "Cowboy Neal saves the World!\n\n";
sleep 1; # Hey, wake up! It's a movie!
}
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
We momentarily interrupt the onslaught of goofy script ideas...
<SERIOUS>
Does anyone know of some good books or URLs on screenplay writing, formatting, etc.? This sounds like it might be fun, but I don't know the rules of the game.
</SERIOUS>
We now return you to our regularly scheduled program. Next up, a +5 Funny!
IIAS (screenwriter). If I worked in Hollywood, I might naturally conclude that De Niro wants to reproduce the success of all three said films. I might therefore graft them together in the most commerical way possible. Let me know what you think, Nov. 1 is not too far off.
----
Will's Beautiful Memento
by Kappelmeister
INT - CLASSROOM - DAY
LEONARD
One more step, I'll dethink ya, buddy.
WILLOW
Come on Lenny, let's go home.
LEONARD
It's a code. There's something else here, I can sense it.
WILLOW
What do you mean?
LEONARD
Look at that Bernoulli hack. Now I know for a fact, no self-respecting professor would write that if he knew his students could get it.
WILLOW
Sorry, sir.
LEONARD
Did I say "Dear Lord" or "Dear Willow," ya four-fingered, two-bit phantom?
WILLOW
You talkin' to me, Lenny?
LEONARD
Dear lord.
Leonard stares intently at the blackboard, his cold grey eyes madly internalizing the complicated equations.
LEONARD
Let me see.
WILLOW
Look, Lenny. The astrophysics professor left this on the board.
LEONARD MATHMAN, an 50-year old janitor, cleans near a college blackboard with his imaginary friend, WILLOW.
You know, I always thought the fact that engineers are the lowest rung of the professional social ladder (I'm an eng. Have you noticed that you never hear the phrase "he's wonderful *and* an engineer", it's always "he's wonderful *and* [doctor, lawyer, rich and sick, etc.]") had something to do with the lack of protagonists in the media. You know, for most people (not this /. crowd, of course), an engineer is perfectely represented 'by that guy in the basement of Office Space'
.... but it would really funny to watch!
Granted, this mostly seems to be the case in the US (don't tell me because engineers are nerds, either. My ex was in med school, and her classmates were about as trendy or "cool" as your average engineer type. So much so, I decided doctors were really just non-mathematical geeks).
*anyways*, what I've wanted to see for some time is an engineering superhero, saving people from disasters using his engineering prowess, as in:
"I've done some quick calculations, the bridge will hold for another ten minutes. If we evacuate the cars in this optimized way I've come up with, we can save all the children trapped in their school bus"
"oh, Integration Man, you've saved the day again! You're my hero!" (beautiful bystander swoons in admiration over Integration Man's ability to integrate numerically in his head, or solve differential equations 'by inspection').
OK, maybe a movie like this won't change the social order
No, this isn't meant to be funny.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Maybe he can star in good will hunting 2: Hunting season
best bit in Jay and Silent Bob strike back IMHO apart from every scene with eliza dushku
This would be a great story - security engineer tracks down malicious hacker (Mitnick.) You got engineering, crime, and suspense. Embelis a bit and you're golden.
Give him some glasses, some voice lessons and one of those toy-lawn-mowers-with-colored-balls-that-bounce-whe n-you-push-them -instead-of-blades (which only he will be able to appreciate on a totality of artistic and mathematic levels).
An oscar means her never having to take her clothes off again.
Not unless she wants to, of course. Dare to dream.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. It might compress well into a feature length block. And there's a part for De Niro in it. I mean, he'd probably make a good Doug Shaftoe. And Wheaton might work for Randy.
Thoughts?
In mathematics, one does not understand things, one merely gets used to them.
--VonNeumann
...who faked the moon landing?
Banach-Tarski Overdrive
DeNiro as Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse ;)
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
A friend of mine is a scriptwriter in the USA, she told me that you get sponsored by the government if you agree to have them dictate certain parts of the script: They make is easier to record your movie in certain cities and you can make free use of the militairy things (she told me there's even an dedicated goverment agency that's taking care about these movie things).
I think it's really bad when a government starts to use the movies as a form of propaganda, instead of artistic view on something, or perhaps mix of both. Many movies these days are disguised propaganda, when you think about it.
hate him all you want, but he's got be the most successful retard in history
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Authors, providing guarantee, that script and/or movie made by it will get at least four Oscar nominations get extra points :)
Hyperom.com
Maybe a biographical film of the character Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park is in order. It has all the elements... Math and Theory and Science and Philosophy and, most importantly, a predisposed worldwide audience.
I would really like to see a movie made based on the book "Fountains on Paradise" by Arthur C. Clarke. This book uses technology which has just become a reality and is even being considered as a viable way to get out to space with less effort.
If the story did get transformed into a movie then it might spur on some more development into the exploration of space and funding of projects of the like.
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
"A scientist, mathematician or engineer as the lead charactor"
And his name must be "Booger"
http://www.kubuntu.org/
What about a Cowboy Bebop Saves The World script.
He'd be perfect, assuming you're a fan of the yank voice actor's butchery of the main character of course.
What does the int mean?
Can you say "Half-Life: The Movie" ?
-- Jim
Someday... It is just a matter of time before someone makes a great movie about Charles Darwin.
Can the script be in perl?
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
He could pull off an Uncle Enzo?
Hollywood: Uhh well, now that we umm didn't get any more copy-right laws passed uhh I guess we need to come up with some real ideas, so hmm would you guys on slashdot have any ideas?
If you are interested in OpenSource flavored filmmaking you should check out OpenCinema.org. It's a fledgling project that intends to deliver open source tools that allow for collaborative (or individual) scripting and storyboarding (think SourceForge for Cinema Artists). It also hopes to work with other projects that will be providing distribution mediums such as the Open Source Streamin Alliance.
Developers and Filmmakers are needed to help out in the software design/implementation process.
De Niro is an Italian-American and so was Enrico Fermi. I would like to see a good film about Fermi, even if De Niro only produces and does not necessarily star in it.
I have a few Perl and Shell scripts I could give him. Oh, ah, wrong kind of script ;)
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Meucci invented the telephone and had the patent stolen from him by Alexander Graham Bell. He was italian, was quite a character, AND is wife was paralyzed or something (for that extra dramatic element)
Sounds like an Oscar winner to me!
Karma: Could be worse (could be raining)
just like reality based TV shows.. you're going to have actors (like Denis Leary is doing on Comedy Central with "Contest Searchlight") calling out to the people.. come up with a script.. fund them for it and air it on TV during the creation of the film with the drama bullshit thrown in..
I guess Dustin Hoffman is right after all.. Hollywood is indeed running out of ideas!
"The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
Let De Niro play Man' O'Kelly from Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" Been waiting for that movie for years.
There was only one mathematician, Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss. He seemed to live a fairly successful long life including having several children and making a fortune.
DeNiro should be playing the acting role on "Life of Steve Balmer". It needs a real artist to act out the "developers, developers" scene. If it is an Oscar what he wants, this is a sure winner.
I worked as a "hasher" in the cafeteria where Jennifer Connelly ate breakfast. I agree that she looks amazing on film, but it must take some effort. She wasn't particularly radiant when asking why we were out of whatever cereal it was that she wanted. This was probably on purpose in order to not attract attention, but you honestly wouldn't look twice on a Sunday morning.
Lasers Controlled Games!
(I would suppose) be able to taylor a story
DANGER WILL ROBINSON. It's t-a-i-l-o-r goddamnit!
I can't believe nobody said Linus! Err... even Stallman?
Want a pitch, a subject, and a title in one word? Okay...
TESLA
Most fascinating scientist in history, I think. Imagine Johnny Depp, in period costume, having a violent epileptic fit in Central Park, then half-consciously carving the diagram for the alternating current generator into the dirt with a stick. Then getting hounded by the government and lesser mortals the rest of his life, inventing everything of any consequence and getting no credit for it. Tragic story, Oscar material all the way.
Read "Man out of Time," if you haven't. And shame be unto you, for not having read it yet.
Potential tag lines: "The man who created the world," or "Never have so many owed so much... To one."
Potential final statement, white words on black screen:
"In 19XX, a federal appeals court ruled that Nikolai Tesla, and not Marconi, was the actual inventor of radio."
(cross-fade)
"The final Edison direct-current generator was taken offline in 19XX. No further experiment or trial in direct current residential voltage has ever been attemped."
(cross-fade)
"Fringe scientists continue to pursue Tesla's dream of providing free electricty to all peoples and places of the world via the Tesla Coil."
(cross-fade)
"The thousands of pages of handwritten notes produced throughout the final years of Tesla's life continue to be classified at the highest levels of secrecy ever assigned to any government document."
(cross-fade)
"It is extremely unlikely that any will ever be made public."
"Oh, well I'm sorry if you don't appreciate my random murders!" - Crow T. Robot,
A movie about the construction, reason behind, creator, and secret of, The Turk would be interesting.
a Scientologist. Thats what.
She's a hot piece of tang.
wasted on niacin.
On PBS there was a show recently called 'lighting up america' or something and I thought they would HAVE to mention Tesla. But they skipped right over him and basically gave the audience the impression that Edison developed Alternating Current and the Electrical Motors that ran on AC. WHAT a Crock. That was the first time that I had witnessed a blatant exclusion of the man that truly had great ideas. Oh well.
Edison was indeed a great inventor but Tesla was the true scientist. Some of his stuff is a little whacked but Tesla was indeed a great scientist.
Now for a truly ridiculous 'if'. In the movie Armeggedon, the mercenary drillers make certain demands from the government as a reward for going to the asteroid. I always thought that it would have been incredibly cool if one of the guys had wished to have Tesla's papers released to the public.
De Niro would be perfect as the overbearing Principal Doug Brutus in my script THE COMPUTER ROOM GANG which is at the bottom of my web-site at http://members.shaw.ca/fhs/AlanHolman.htm
I think it would be interesting to have a movie about the making of the atomic bomb. Particularly Openhiemer's (sp?) topsy turvey career and political problems after the bomb project and the moral dilemma his group faced during the project. (Many wanted a demo project in front of Japanese scientists before actual use, but it was feared that there was not enough nuclear material to spend on that and that the Japanese knew that manufacturing it was a tedious process and may have limited impact.)
Another candidate is the guy who proposed a moon orbiter seperate from the lander during the start of Apollo (I don't remember his name right now). He got a lot of flack, but stood his ground and the logic of his idea eventually prevailed. The final scene could be Armstrong's historical stepping out.
Manhattan project and Apollo, the two biggies.
Either that, the Bill Gates story (similar to The Wizards of Silicone Valley, which the stupid movie stores don't carry anymore.) I just hope, they would show both sides of Gates, the good and the bad.
Table-ized A.I.
Lets see. The Soviets had a 1.5 to 1 advantage in forces (on the defense, where doctrine says the attacker needs a 3 to 1 advantange). They knew the attack was coming for several months and had plenty of time to prepare a defense in depth. They still almost lost, and yet they someone, mystically, owe the victory to Turing? I think not. It belittles the hundred or so thousdand Russians that died in that battle to suggest so.
The attack was no surprise, and it was no surprise not because of Enigma, but because of good old classic humint Russian penetration of German command.
How about http://wearables.unisa.edu.au/arquake/ /. editors add insult to injury and let drivel like this get posted on the frontpage. Who cares? Do you really think that there is a hidden talent lurking here with sci-fi movie script, and /. get into the movie credit list? I'm sorry, but ./ is slowly going to hell. Our "editors" need to show a bit more ambition, or maybe they just get a kick out of pissing us off?
Or the 800MHz iPaq?
Yes, I'm pissed off because my stories got rejected, then
Yes, feel free to mod me down, but this is just my humble opinion.
Have you seen "Fatman and Little Boy"?
One of them was a BBC documentary.
Tuva Traver
They have links for Feynman video and audio.
- Mark B.
De Niro is obviously not a scientist, and obviously could not play one. It is possible to play someone more stupid convincingly, but not someone smarter. Give it up, Bob, don't make a stupid movie. Stay with what you know.
On the other hand, Bob, if you are reading this, and you are serious about doing Feynman, I will coach you in how to act like a scientist. The training will take up to five years, and when it is finished, you will be a scientist, so it won't be difficult to act like one.
Ever see 'Awakenings'? (Robin Williams & De Niro)
It has a similar story, only it's a guy who comes out of a coma only to figure out that he'll be going back in before too long.
I think it would be a bit too similar - I already get those two movies confused at times...
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
'cuz I (heart) open source shit, like the Linux weenie I am.
This is a one-time movie idea, no need to remove. According to S.1618 this is not spam.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
maybe he should do Linus Trovaldos...i think he desrves it..
The lunatic is in my head
But does that description really fit cowboy neal?
Given the profile of him in "Showstopper" De Niro could certainly do the wandering around MSFT yelling at folk :D
DeNiro already did Awakenings, based on real-life medical researcher/writer Oliver Sacks. He even had amnesia similar to Leonard in Memento.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
It was called Enigma.
Prologue: As processor speeds increase, computers worldwide have traditionally become more and more unstable..People blamed Microsoft..Software becomes buggier and buggier, to the point where its an accepted part of computing that stuff fails on a regular basis.
Plot: In 2003, household PCs have begun to reach speeds approaching 3 GHz... One night over a sixpack of Dew, a group of computer science geeks with copper blocks and good overclocking skillz (heh) manage to bench 3.1 GHz for the first time in their dorm, and the true reason for years worth of "errors" are revealed. Around 3 GHz, fragments of text are found to materialize in the data that don't belong there -- messages like "Can any-#e se_ this?" "ArE %ou there?" "Is anyone thT*re?"...Linux hackers notice it first, of course, since we're the only ones doing any debugging anymore, or looking at coredumps
The government takes the gear in to be studied. Emergency meetings are called between the Government and the big 3 -- IBM/HP/Compaq/Sun, to build a "research nexus" where this technology can be developed or exploited for commercial/military gain. During testing, the dead hackers send a message through the engineers telling them who they are, and how they died...The engineers look back in time to learn how the government killed the students, and look forward to see what will happen if this device is every fully developed...A complete friggin nightmare. The plot could diverge into a number of different subthreads at this point, including: "pissed engineers conspire to destroy or shitcan the idea", "the engineers realize they are the ones on the inside trying to communicate out", or "the guys in the dorm hack the hack, so to speak, to go back and make it so that they dont die". Take your pick.
In the end, the final scene of the movie shows a complete duplicate of the opening scene, except they decide 3.14 GHz is too fast, and step the clock down a little. One little change in judgement when it comes to overclocking avoids the whole movie.
Bowie J. Poag
So, in 1894, he built a turbine-powered boat, the Turbinia. This was the first high speed boat, 103 feet long, only 9 feet wide, with three propeller shafts. (Think PT boat.) Nobody else had motorboats faster than about 12 knots back then. The Turbinia could do 34 knots.
Parsons hired an aggressive captain to pilot the thing and snuck it into the crowd of small boats watching a review of the British fleet, a naval parade with the top officers of the British Navy and the Queen watching. Captain Leyland waited for the right moment as the Fleet passed by, and then made his move. For the first time ever, a large group of people heard the terrifying whine of big turbines winding up to speed. The Turbinia unfurled a red pennant. She then went zooming through the fleet, and nothing the Royal Navy had could catch it. One Navy ship fired a gun, but the Royal Navy of that era couldn't hit moving targets. (That's another story, and it too has an engineering hero.)
Parsons was briefly criticized for this by the Royal (British) Navy, but when the Prussian Navy expressed interest in the technology, the Royal Navy stopped griping and started buying Parsons turbines.
Riding on the Turbinia was dramatic. Flames from the stack, spray everywhere. She had a rough ride, but you got there in a hurry. Pictures and contemporary descriptions exist.
The Turbinia herself had a successful career. She cruised to Paris, operated in the North Sea, was widely demonstrated, and is now in a museum at Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Now that's a science/technology story good for a movie.
You mean to tell me that DeNiro is going to actually look for a certain type of script, rather than do whatever lands on his desk? Or maybe he's just miffed about not being able to win any awars except an MTV or Blockbuster award.
"...more and more of our imports come from overseas." - G.W. Bush
Spoiler follows ...
The last scene of the play showed Alan taking a bite out of the infamous apple as all the lights go out.
Then the lights came up, and the cast came out to take a bow, and then they stuck around to answer questions (it was a small playhouse). All this time, the actor who played Alan was still in costume, and he was taking more bites out of the apple!
So I raised my hand: "would you mind putting that apple down? It's freaking me out to watch you eat it!"
Good idea. Too bad it's too late to mod this up some.
I like my women like my coffee... pale and bitter.
That was funny... Really...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
No, Hinckley has not been released from the nuthouse (AFAIK)...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Yeah, I know, De Niro wants science, not sci-fi...screw him, this book MUST be made into a summer blockbuster.
No, not Minskys' book, the sci-fi one that has a similar title because it's based on similar tech. Authored by Eric L. Harry, came out in 1996. Great book on the impact of near-term radical technology (robots, neural net computers, asteroid mining, etc.) - sort of "Jurassic Park Meets the Island of Dr. Moreau" only substituting giant robots for dinosaurs.
Short concept: Harvard babe psychologist (perfect Jodie Foster role) gets hired by Bill Gates-like reclusive billionaire (I'm thinking Val Kilmer at his most enigmatic) to fly to his private Pacific island where he runs his own spaceport and robotized manufacturing plant that puts up LEO satellites (like Craig McCaw's Teledesic thingy), supposedly to do some psych counseling. Turns out it's not him she has to psychoanalyze but his giant neurocomputer that runs everything on the island and is starting to behave erratically. Meanwhile she discovers this guy is building small nukes, and VR pods and the computer is directing her into strange situations, while the boss's security chief (I'm thinking Ed Harris for this part) is getting suspicious of everybody including his boss. Then a decapitated dead man turns up on the island. Then she finds out our boy is making giant ten-foot-tall robots with their own neurocomputers, uncontrolled by the central computer, which doesn't happen to like them - because they are autonomous - really autonomous, as in running around the island out of control. And then an asteroid suddenly shows up approaching Earth orbit - apparently brought there by our boy who intends to use nukes to put it into a LaGrange zone. Only the computer has to do it - and it's getting a little weird... And the US Government has a destroyer offshore and Navy Seals ready to invade the place if that asteroid takes a wrong turn...
Great story, lots of science, lots of action - the final battle between two groups of robots and the humans as a third party is both visually interesting and funny.
This movie would easily do $250-500 million domestic...
Unfortunately, I don't see De Niro in any of it...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I had a double bill last night. The Man who would be King, on TVO and Infinity on the CBC. Infinity was good. Of course there were no car chases or anything like that. But a fair number of real incidents from his life made it into the movie. I'll forgive the Brodericks for the liberties they took. (Mathew Broderick directed as well as starred. His mother was credited as the writer.
I thought Broderick did a pretty good job of capturing Feynman's playful character. I wouldn't mind him doing another movie from later in Feynman's life. Although the pinched a few from his later life. Mind you they left out the whole safecracker thing, which could almost make a movie all by itself.
One of the question discussed here was how intelligent does an actor have to be to convincingly play a scientist, to our exacting standards. I'd say Broderick managed it.
It was my impression that Lieghton did more than merely transcribe Feynman's stories. Leighton had been Feynman's protege from his teenage years -- lucky stiff. He had probably heard most of them dozens of times. I imagine he did a fair bit of polishing.
Fat people do it to themselves. They aren't born that way, just years of physical inactivity have rendered their bodies overweight. True, some people have a genetic predisposition to being overweight, but obesity is controllable and treatable. This isn't the same as being born black or hispanic. You can't control your skin color, but you have control over the weight of your body.
Memento did not have as a lead character an engineer, scientist or mathematician?