In March our Microgravity Center got three important wins from NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program providing us with a week-long parabolic airplane flight campaign for one experiment and two suborbital rocket flights for each of two other experiments. Florida Space Institute’s new digs at the UCF Research Park are well into construction with an anticipated move from Kennedy Space Center in June. The Physics Department continues to modernize its teaching program with the development of a new modern “studio-mode” classroom to be built this summer, and I completed my first year of teaching the Algebra-based Physics 1 and Physics 2 cycle (physics for life sciences majors) just this week. Cassini, meanwhile, is getting ready to leave Saturn’s equatorial plane for more inclined climes this summer, providing us once again with dazzling views of the rings and me with a new flood of data to analyze.

And, finally, the astonished amusement phase of the presidential campaign now gives way to the obsessive panicky phase at the prospect that election-law tinkering, super-PAC spending, and propaganda will result in the dismantling of the American government.

The movie throws in some extra plot elements to help explain how John Carter, a former member of the Confederate Cavalry, ends up on Mars, but the screenplay by Andrew Stanton (who directed), Mark Andrews, and Michael Chabon cleverly handles what was essentially a mystical transport in Burroughs’ book, particularly at the end of the movie. (Stanton and Chabon, by the way, are my age. I cannot help but suspect they had a similar experience with the books as I did thanks to their re-release (Frazetta-ized) in the mid-seventies.) The movie is less clever in explaining what interest the apparently malevolent (but professedly indifferent) Therns (immortals meddling in the affairs of Mars and men) have in John Carter and his involvement in a Martian civil war.

The situation on Mars is not made entirely clear by the movie either. The planet is populated by “red men” who inhabit (apparently) only two cities: Helium and Zodanga. There is also a civilization of Tharks: 10-foot-tall green people with four arms and large tusks whose young hatch from eggs. (In the books, so do the children of the buxom, naked, and beautiful women of Helium, but the movie spares us this oddity of Martian reproduction.) Aside from this handful of densely populated cities, Mars (or “Barsoom” in Barsoomian) looks remarkably like the real Mars, which is to say a barren wasteland. One wonders what the Martians eat, where they get their power, how they build their elaborate and fragile airships, and why there aren’t any living things smaller than a lion. But, for the most part, one doesn’t wonder these things until after one has left the movie theater. That is, while both Burroughs’ original story and Stanton’s adaptation have lots of nonsense, it’s harmless nonsense and the fast-paced fantasy action keeps us happily distracted for the duration of the movie.

Carter is able to be a successful fighter on Mars due to muscles and bones grown in Earth’s stronger gravitational field. Here as throughout the movie, things are a tad exaggerated. While Mars’s gravitational acceleration is about 1/3 that of the Earth, Carter is able to leap hundreds of feet. Had I been a science consultant I would not have complained about that particular liberty (this is, after all, a fantasy movie, not a science fiction movie), but I would have given them a nifty idea to get another dramatic element out of Mars’s two moons and add a bit of orbital realism as a bonus.

Taylor Kitsch gives Carter a rather sullen demeanor, but the movie has fun with his stubbornness. Stanton manages to infuse some much-needed humor here and there, including a self-deprecating nod at the ironic similarities of the story to so many Disney animated movies about princesses. Lynn Collins plays the Princess of Helium, Dejah Thoris, though, in an update from the book for 21st century norms, she is first introduced to us in the movie as a scientist who is on the verge of a major breakthrough in magical Martian technology. Collins gives what Burroughs described as “the incomparable Dejah Thoris” reasonable heft: she is not merely a damsel in distress. She is a smart, strong and brave damsel in distress.

Most reviews I’ve read cannot resist mentioning its rumored price tag. But I paid a normal ticket price and got my money’s worth.

In this case, Don Cheadle plays the sophisticated FBI investigator Wendell Everett, dispatched to a small town in Ireland on the trail of international drug dealers who may be making a delivery on the coast there. He is forced by circumstance to partner with the town’s policeman or “guard” Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleason). Boyle is unimpressed with Everett’s work ethic and proceeds with his weekend getaway with two lovely prostitutes from the city, leaving Everett to canvas the town on his own with predictably unproductive results. The two stars provide enough charm and chemistry to carry the relatively lightweight movie on their shoulders.

The movie’s title gives his odds of recovery as well as reflects the uncertainties of life in general. Adam’s illness becomes a catalyst for change in his relationships and his approach to life. It does not take long, for example, for him to realize that his girlfriend is a fair-weather friend. His best friend Kyle, played by Seth Rogan, on the other hand, is a true friend, even if sometimes his efforts to help miss the mark. Kyle determines that some casual sex would be excellent medicine for Adam, and it’s a sweetly perverse (a phrase that characterizes most Rogan roles) outing that ends up with the two of them heading home with two women to try some of Adam’s medicinal marijuana. But the reality of a painful back tumor did not factor into Kyle’s planning. The movie has just the right amount of Kyle: in leading man doses I’ve found Rogan to become grating. Here he provides good comic moments without dominating the story of Adam’s journey from a well-ordered life into one characterized by uncertainty.

Anna Kendrick plays Adam’s hospital-assigned therapist Katherine, a student in training who tries the techniques she learned in class out on Adam, her first patient. As she tries to help him deal with the misery of chemotherapy and his mortality, Adam helps her learn her future trade. Adam’s parents, a protective mother (Anjelica Huston, compelling, but not an obvious choice to play Levitt’s mom) whom he has kept at a distance, and a father with the first stages of dementia, provide the third leg of support, with Kyle and Katherine, for Adam. His journey is, in large part, learning to recognize and accept this support. Even without a diagnosis of cancer, it is an uncertain world. Adam discovers the joy in that uncertainty. What comes next may be wonderful. And when it isn’t, he has people to lean on.

The style of the movie, the brainchild of writer and director Michel Hazanavicius, is true to the golden age of silent movies. He filmed it at 22 frames per second while movies are projected at 24 frames per second now, resulting in all the action running roughly 10% faster than normal. This replicates the jerky feel of the older movies which were shot at the stuttering rate of 16 frames per second. He keeps the old 4 to 3 aspect ratio and even grays out the corners of the image to replicate the imperfect projectors of the time. The actors also ham it up a bit, conveying meaning without words but instead with big grins and exaggerated gestures. John Goodman is particularly fun as the movie producer, initially of Valentin’s hits and later of Peppy Miller’s talkies. It has a nostalgic charm and is fun to watch. However, spoken dialogue is able to convey far more nuance of emotion as well as more information about plot as well as the inner life of characters. Absent this, the characters’ motivations remain only superficially portrayed. Valentin’s insistence on spiraling down the drain of despair ultimately becomes frustrating and, for me at least, unbelievable. It is my only complaint and thanks to the film’s accelerated pace, short-lived, as the action (and style) ultimately saves the day and the movie.

The movie takes its time establishing the characters and the situation with Shaw and only hits its full comic stride about midway through when Kovacs and company start planning the heist. Shaw, for his part, is under penthouse arrest, the target of an FBI prosecution led by Special Agent Clair Denham (Téa Leoni, my co-star), complicating for obvious reasons plans to break in to said penthouse and steal $20 million. There are a number of funny throwaway moments, such as when Dev’reaux, the least stressed and most clueless of the bunch, buys ski caps instead of ski masks because they are made of a warmer fabric and when Slide insists that they all steal $50 of merchandise from the mall to prove they are capable of theft at all. The group manages to capture some of the current angst and anger about the fleecing of society by unscrupulous bankers without being self-pitying or preachy. As Kovacs, Stiller is calmly determined to do right by his colleagues. The hapless Fitzhugh joins in because it beats, after all, living in a cardboard box on the street, and Charlie reluctantly participates because he is (a) easily persuadable, and (b) is facing serious financial troubles with the loss of his job and the impending birth of a child (with Kovacs’ sister whose narrow vagina Charlie fears will crush the infant‘s head). The group has good chemistry and the script brings them to life. The climax is both funny and tense, and the movie’s conclusion is both satisfying and unconventional.

We follow the spread of the infection beginning with a business traveller (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) returning from Hong Kong. Her husband (Matt Damon) and his daughter represent the general population: the movie concentrates on the efforts of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization. But we flit between doctors both at CDC (Laurence Fishburne, Jennifer Ehle, Demetri Martin (!), Winslet) and at a private company (Elliot Gould – always fun to watch, but in a role that is superfluous in an overly crowded movie). Jude Law plays a trouble-making blogger sowing fear and distrust over the internet. No doubt rumors and fear-mongering would run rampant through the internet in the event of a serious epidemic, but Law’s character also takes time away from the, oh, I don’t know, 109 parts listed for this movie at imdb.com. Cotillard is banished to Hong Kong as WHO’s investigative officer, disconnected from everyone else in the movie except for security camera footage of Paltrow. What I’m saying is: too many characters spread the movie too thin. I would have liked to have spent twice the time with half the characters.

This is perhaps overly severe. The movie is interesting on an intellectual level. It is well acted and well written. Although it tracks a plethora of characters, the movie moves forward at a brisk clip and is never confusing or muddled. Kudos to screenwriter Scott Z. Burns and director Steven Soderbergh for crafting a well-researched medical drama that doesn’t condescend to the audience. The dialogue between the doctors at the CDC feels authentic, and I was surprised not to find a medical consultant in the credits. The final statistics we here on this particular viral outbreak from Dr. Cheever (Fishburne) are that 1 in 12 people on the planet will get infected, and the mortality rate is 25%. That puts the total mortality at roughly the same level of the spanish flu of 1918-1920. Think about that when you leave the theater.

It is easier to believe Dex’s seduction by the glitz and easy fame of trash TV than it is Emma’s struggles in life and love. She is played, after all, by Anne Hathaway. Dorky glasses and clompy boots are the movie’s only effort to explain why her only suitor through the years is Ian, an even dorkier and desperate aspiring stand-up comic. Adding insult to injury, he sits around all day watching “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (a conflating of Star Trek with loserdom that I found personally affronting) while she does all the work and pays all the bills.

Movies with this sort of gimmick have the problem that while it is still just two hours in the theater, seeing the couple spend two decades in fitful romance feels as frustrating for us in the audience as it must have been for Emma through all those years, loving Dexter and hoping for him to get his act together. But she doesn’t do much to help him get his act together, and neither does she ever really move on. Sturgess and Hathaway are both immensely appealing actors, and their performances here are no exception, but One Day is a romance where frustration and heartache frequently win out over happiness and fulfillment. It’s not that that is unfair or unrealistic, but it can be frustrating, even if it is only vicarious.

For her part, Hannah, a young lawyer, wrestles with whether she should settle for the smarmy and decidedly unromantic colleague (a delightfully repugnant Josh Groban). Meanwhile Cal’s 14-year-old son Robbie pines for his 18-year-old babysitter who in turn pines for Cal. But Cal is off scoring at the bars thanks to his newfound Jake-inspired coolness. If it sounds a bit messy, it is, but the movie takes the time needed to develop most of these characters beyond the routine or the caricature. Of everyone in the movie, Robbie is the one with the purest ideas of love. Everyone else is jaded in one way or another. Emily is bored and has allowed herself to be lured into an affair, Cal has decided that superficial physical relationships are what he needs, Hannah mulls whether or not to settle, the babysitter has set her sights on the unattainable older man, and superficial physical relationships are all Jake has ever known. It is up to Robbie to educate the crazy, stupid adults.

(I can’t help commenting on the peculiar punctuation of the title that suggests that it is not love that is both crazy and stupid, but that the movie is about three separate things: crazy, stupid, and love. My comment is that it is peculiar that it is not called “Crazy, Stupid Love”.)