I just watched The New World (finally) and I have to say that it's an excellent movie. I was a bit apprehensive, thinking that it would either be really good or intolerable. After seeing it, I have to say that I love everything about it from the music and sounds, to the acting, to the layers of meaning in every scene. It is unlike anything else I have ever seen.

Another movie I watched this week was The Day of the Triffids. This is a 1960s sci-fi film that could safely be classified as one of the worst movies ever made--and it was absolutely hilarious to watch. I went with some friends to see a screening of it at the SLC library Tuesday night. After the film was a lecture given by a botanist from USU, who gave a lecture about actual carnivorous plants as opposed to the ones found in the movie. To give you an idea of the ridiculousness of this movie, allow me to briefly summarize the plot: An unprecedented meteor shower entrances the 99 percent of the earth's population who watch it, and also blinds them (apparently burning their optic nerves). That same meteor shower "awakens" a plant which came from space a while earlier, called a triffid. This plant grows from one to eight feet tall in seconds, uproots itself, chases people down (attracted by sounds, as our hero discovers), and eats them. Oh, and it has soon spread all over the earth. The brilliant, alcoholic marine biologist who has been trapped with his wife in a lighthouse surrounded by killer triffids discovers that sea water dissolves these plants and saves the day (nevermind that all of the major cities are burning down because of blunders made by the newly blind and nearly all hope for civilized life has ceased). As I said, absolutely awful and absolutely hilarious.

Some movies, like The New World, possess the ability not just to entertain but to expand minds--to provoke thought. Others, like The Day of the Triffids, only amuse. Just an example of how versatile art and technology are.