Bad Science and Dr Parnassus reviews

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre is all about how science can be done very badly indeed and everyone still believes it because it's on TV or reported in newspapers.  He writes very well and has a very strong and very appealing authorial voice.  He's also very funny, in between saying important things about what we believe about our health.  The one drawback to the book is that it does get rather repetitive, as all the people/industries/systems he criticises essentially use the same tactics or make the same mistakes so, once these have been explained, the only variation is in the execution.  Very good, overall, though.


I wasn't sure what to expect from The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus.  I've not been overly fond ot Terry Gilliam stuff in the past, and I'd read reviews that said it was a bit patchy.  I can't really argue with the latter - certain scenes felt as if they could have been better, and the tone was a little uneven.  However, overall, I rather enjoyed it.  I think it thought it had more depth than it actually did, but the themes were interesting, most of the performances were very good, a lot of the visuals were very arresting, and the conceit of Tony changing his appearance every time he entered the Imaginarium worked very well.  Of course, having Heath Ledger, Jude Law, Colin Farrell and Johnny Depp all in the same film didn't hurt any, but there were lots of other aspects of the characterisation and the storytelling that I found enjoyable as well.