Knowing

A few things before I get into telling you how bad I think Knowing was:

I almost screamed like a little girl when I saw this: http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/tauntaun.html

The NCAA has hosted a women's basketball tournament since 1982. In every single one of these, Tennessee has reached the Sweet 16. Coming into this year, they were 27 for 27 in that department and had won eight titles. In their 19 tournament losses, none came to a team seeded lower than fourth. So it was unheard of when they lost in the first round of this year's tournament to a twelve seed. Not just any twelve seed, but a Ball State team that had never been in the tournament at all. The baseball poets tell us that every time you watch a baseball game, you have a chance to see something you've never seen before. This year, that sort of thing happened in women's basketball. It would be like me beating Tiger Woods in eighteen holes of golf.

On March 19 in men's college basketball, Syracuse beat Connecticut in six overtimes. The thing that jumped out at me first when I saw the box score was the half-by-half breakdown. It usually looks something like this:

1 2 T
34 33 67
29 30 59

This game's breakdown looks like this:


1 2 OT 2OT 3OT 4OT 5OT 6OT T
34 37 10 6 11 6 6 17 127
37 34 10 6 11 6 6 7 117

(It looks fine when I type it in, but screwy when I do the preview, so you may have to use your imagination)

Consider some of the numbers from this game:

In their previous matchup, Syracuse attempted 60 shots and 12 free throws, UCONN 48 shots and 22 free throws. In this game, Syracuse attempted 103 shots and 51 free throws, UCONN 106 shots and 42 free throws. Six players had double-doubles. Three players from UCONN had 14 rebounds each. Syracuse guard Jonny Flynn played 67 minutes--more than a game and a half. Eight players fouled out. After the end of regulation, 102 more points were scored.

Oklahoma's women's basketball team recently lost to Louisville in the national semifinals. Their famous relatives are very sad. You may not recognize the last name of Courtney and Ashley Paris, but their father, Bubba Paris, was an offensive lineman who won three Super Bowls blocking for Joe Montana. The next two names might be more familiar: Abi Olajuwon and Carlee Roethlisberger. The first is Hakeem Olajuwon's daughter and the second is Ben Roethlisberger's sister. That's some pretty heavy pro sports family power.

On to Knowing, which I think is terrible. I'm inclined to look favorably on it, since it was co-written by the daughter of a former Scholars' College professor. I take my Natchitoches connections where I can get them. Somebody accused me of sounding like a critic (actually, like most critics) when I said that Nicolas Cage completely mailed in a lousy acting job, the writers littered the film with disconnected motifs, and the film had absolutely no central structure to work around. I'm fine with a movie that's about randomness, but it shouldn't just be a compilation of random scenes that don't have any sort of connecting thread running through it. Then it's just nonsense on screen.

I'm not saying that the film has to tell the viewer everything, explaining it to them like they're a simpleton. And I'm not saying that the viewer shouldn't have to do any thinking, or even do any serious thinking. I just believe that when the viewer does think critically about the movie, then things pretty much make sense. I didn't get that, and neither did the people I watched it with. Plus, the acting was so bad that it was hard to take too much of it seriously, which really ruins my suspension of disbelief. I think the premise of the story is a good one and could have made for a good movie. Unfortunately, everything else messed it up. Reminds me of "Langoliers" on ABC from several years back. I really liked the story, but the execution was just awful.

If you're looking for something to fill your free time--laugh uproariously here--then I recommend Academic Earth, which gives you access to lectures on a range of topics from some of the more highly-regarded universities.