Your Brain on Love; Whit Stillman Waited 14 Years to Make a Movie About College
We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today: Whit Stillman has returned after a 14-year absence to make a movie about college, your brain on love, and more bad news for cryptozoologists.
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Director Whit Stillman's first movie in 14 years is coming out in April. It is called Damsels in Distress, and the plot involves a coed dormitory, which is all we needed to hear: Stillman doesn't work much, but his three previous films -- Metropolitan in 1990, Barcelona in 1994 (his best work) and The Last Days of Disco in 1998 -- are inevitably lumped together with those of Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson. This is unfair, because Stillman has none of Anderson's showiness, and unlike Baumbach, his movies are about fundamentally decent folk. So what did we learn from the two-and-a-half-minute Damsels in Distress trailer? It looks like Greta Gerwig is playing a slightly more humane Mean Girl. We're fine with that. And Adam Brody -- the fella from The O.C. and In the Land of Women, that most regrettable of unsuccessful Meg Ryan comeback pictures -- iooks to be playing what six years ago would have been referred to as the Adam Brody role. We're also fine with that. Above all, we're fine with Whit Stillman having a new movie for us look forward to. [Yahoo]
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While you're busy wondering if that warm, fluttery feeling you get after meeting someone you like is a crush or a minor heart attack, your brain is hard at work. Synapses are firing, dopamine is being released, and adrenaline is pounding, because you're still not sure about that whole heart attack business. Neuroscientists can now see the whole process taking place, which is comforting, since everyone wants to hear what they should do about this new person they like. [Wired]
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Time has assembled a montage of the best kisses in movie history. You know, for Valentine's Day. It's sweet and lovely and you can yell "Why don't you kiss her instead of talking her to death?" whenever you feel the place starting to flag. [Time]
Today isn't going to be all love and kisses and new Whit Stillman trailers: we also have to talk about the very serious subject of getting lost while in the grocery store. This happens to us more than we would like to admit, though in our case, we're usually just overstimulated from all the varieties of mustard they're selling these days. But we know people who get lost in the supermarket, and can't find the bottom-third of their list. Thanks to a new app called ByteLight, you don't have to worry about leaving your shopping undone. Assuming your market has totally switched over to LED lighting, you can hold your phone up, and a little constellation will emerge in the sky pointing you towards to Powerade and Tom Collins Mix. It combines the flashing light of a laser pointer with the convenience of those signs that hang over every aisle and tell you which products can be found where. [Mashable]
This has not been a good news cycle for people with romantic imaginations. First, the Woolly Mammoth from Siberia gets unmasked as a hoax, and now, shot-by-shot analysis of the purported footage captured last week of legendary Icelandic lake monster Lagarfljótsormurinn reveals that too is likely a fraud. (Note how Lagarfljótsormurinn's head never moves in relation to his surroundings.) What sort of person would fabricate footage of a wondrous beast from the past. Saying, "I saw the Lagarfljótsormurinn when I was ice-fishing and he's got fangs the size of chopsticks" is one thing. That's something you say to pass the winter or maybe let the object of your affection know you know people. Important people. People who are giant worms that live in a freshwater lakes and have the ability to predict the future. Faking something like is just lousy. [Discovery News]
