A mom talks about her daughter's mental illness.
Erin says that Brave passes the Bechdel test.
Nate Silver talks about political science and forecasting.
Other public universities are having the same fights as UVA.
Reconstructing a nose for an Afghan girl.
Supermoms should tell their truth about their perfect lives.
Apt. 11d 
500!
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Love the.woman width red hair and love Merida’s hair. We watched Brave on Friday. It was watchable but not well plotted enough for me. I’m a stickler for stories that look like they were meant and this one showed what I consider the movie flaw of having scenes that looked like they were there for the animators and not the story.
Merida is definitely the main character and she’s ok.
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I took all three Raggirls to see “Brave” on Sunday, and they all liked it.
I am on the fence as to whether it was “original.” One thing the girls pointed out was, unlike most movies, they had no idea what it was actually about because all of the coming attractions only showed scenes from the first 15 minutes, before Merida decided to “change her fate” and what that means. So there were surprised beyond just how the situation is resolved.
On the other hand, the princess who the king wants to marry off, but wants to choose her own husband at her own time, so there’s a contest and the princess ends up competing against the boys and tying the best performer was, to a point, the plot of the version of “Atalanta” in “Free To Be, You And Me.” Just with a running race instead of archery.
The rest of the movie is not really original either — a spell has unexpected effects, and the hero has to figure out how to undo the spell. It’s the plot of everything from The Monkey’s Paw to the last Shrek movie. The “original” part was that the spell involved Merida and her mother — two females.
So, my conclusion is that it was “good,” but calling it “original” sort of misses the point. It was good specifically because it was just another Pixar adventure, and Pixar adventures are usually really good. They fit Merida into the formula that worked for Shrek and Buzz Lightyear, and got the same good result. It was only “original” because they did it with a girl and her mom.
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Love the.woman width red hair…
Flattering the hostess?
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“Love the.woman width red hair…”
Flattering the hostess?
Indeed. I think the world would be a better place if more women had wild red hair, like Merida. It’s one of the best things about the movie.
We also noted that the coming attractions never told you what happens after she “changes her fate” and believe that’s ’cause they didn’t know, when they were making the movie, and they kind of winged it.
I see the argument for having the set pieces (race, spell that goes wrong, . . . ) but I also thought those were the weaknesses. The archery thing didn’t work (though they did rescue that by using it to illustrate her frustrations, with the contrast that her speech in the center hall, on the other hand, did work).
But why was the mom there, except to observe her triumph? She couldn’t help sew up the tapestry?
And, I thought the “mend the bond that has been broken” should have been more metaphorical & how was it broken through “pride”
I can see, though, why these cliches don’t matter to the Pixar animation genre.
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The piece about political science and forecasting spends time on Tetlock but doesn’t really mention his current project on seeing if he can’t improve forecasting by using groups.
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