Minions - Film Review

Stuart and Bob as bananas in "Minions"

Studio: Illumination Entertainment 
Director: Kyle Balda; Pierre Coffin 
Quality (out of four): ★

After the hits that were the Despicable Me films and their tiny yellow breakout stars, a feature-film starring the talking Twinkies was inevitable. Illumination Entertainment has really outdone itself by creating a film so casually animated, humorless, unoriginal, and mind-numbing that it seems as if it's purposely trying to lower the bar beneath the ground for films aimed at children. That fact is unfortunate because mainstream audiences consistently find it difficult to watch animated films without the company of a child because they believe they're not created for them and they won't enjoy them. The other unfortunate fact is that "Minions" affirms those prejudices. It's not just a film not created for adults; it's not created for adults, kids, wizards, dragons, penguins, robots, or anything capable of looking at a screen.

If you dig deep enough you may be able to mine a story out of this convoluted assembly of loosely related tales. That story involves the history of the minions from the beginnings of Earth to the present day. Their only wish is to serve the biggest, baddest master they can find but every time they succeed -- whether it's a Tyrannosaurus Rex, or a vampire -- they accidentally cause the demise of their treasured bad guy. It's a half-heartedly funny premise that could have been executed throughout the entire film to become a story about the minions having to learn how to actually become valuable assets to their masters instead of terminal handicaps. Instead the film basically becomes the tale of how one so-called "brave minion" leads two companions on a mission to find a master villainous enough to give the entire minion race purpose again after years of having no one to serve.

Even the premise that the movie actually sets up has some inherent value. The idea of the minions suffering from a communal existential crisis could have given way to exploration of the minions internal psyche while still providing the zany goofs the minions are known for in a unique and original context. But the movie fails to execute anything. There is no logical progression, character development, stakes high or low, and nothing valuable to say about anything. In fact, the movie has absolutely no thoughts -- valuable or worthless. What we have is a film that is essentially braindead trying to navigate the complex waters of narrative storytelling comparable to a cricket trying to read brail.

What the movie ends up giving us is a series of episodes. One of those episodes involves the biggest, baddest villain on the planet Scarlet Overkill who could have also been named Scarlet Underkill based on Sandra Bullock's blasé performance. The minions win her admiration by a shed of good look and she entrusts them to steal the crown from the Queen of England, which she has wanted since she was little. Another story involves Bob being crowned the King of England for being capable of removing the sword from the legendary sword in stone. And yet another involves Kevin having to save his compadres after Scarlet becomes the Queen.

What's most depressing about the entire experience is that the movie is boring. Even the kids were fidgeting and getting anxious; asking to go to the bathroom every five minutes because they were sure they wouldn't miss much. The laughs are non-existent and I could count my chuckles on one finger. For a film that has so much going on, the entertainment value is low. It's noisy, irritating, and downright annoying. The minions don't have half the charm as the Little Green Men from the Toy Story films. They're are about as cute as a mosquito landing on your arm to suck your blood.

Outside of it's atrocious story, the animation and designs are so obviously second-class that the Blu-Ray of this film should be sold at Lackluster. The minions are all interchangeable and have no defining characteristics outside of their shape. The humans all have some sort of anorexia complex, and the environments are done at the bare minimum. There were times throughout the film where the dialogue didn't seem to come from the character. It seemed as if there was a live-action actor recording his or her voice in a studio to be placed over the animated character mouthing off the words. Willing suspension of disbelief wasn't even achieved at the de facto level when it comes to this film.

There is nothing to admire, praise, or congratulate here. Maybe that it succeeded in being worse than even my most pessimistic predictions but that's hardly an accolade. Maybe that the film will be successful anyway despite it's overwhelming flaws both technically and narratively. Maybe that it's another attempt to clearly desensitize audiences to the horrors of bad filmmaking in the name of being "a kid's movie". Movies are movies and they're for everyone. But no one who wants to be moved, enlightened, or taught will find anything of value in this 91 minutes. Kiah Simons

Ted 2 - Film Review

Mark Wahlberg and Seth McFarlane (voice) in Ted 2

Studio: Universal Pictures

Director: Seth McFarlane

Quality (out of four): ★1/2

There is no denying Seth McFarlane's talent. His voice work and sense of humor have left audiences in stitches since Family Guy first debuted  in 1999. But as Don Simens -- the famous Hollywood teacher -- has pointed out, talent is the last thing you need to survive in Movie Town. According to Mr. Simens, the one thing you need above all is a great script. When it comes to Ted 2, he couldn't be more spot on. 

Although Ted 2 offers funny joke after funny joke that is sure to make audiences sprout Coke from their noses, it does so in a Family Guy-esque manner that makes McFarlane appear to have no idea of the difference between what works in a  television sitcom and a feature-length film. Although they may look similar on paper, the undeniable fact is that the two mediums have very different rhythms that cannot be copied and pasted from one to the other without producing either a bad film or a bad sitcom. 

What McFarlane has crafted here is a bad film. He would do well to take Mr. Simens' course if only to find out the great importance that a script has on a film's success. What bothers me about the one that Seth McFarlane, Alec Sulkin, and Wellesley Wild put together is that it seems as if the each person had a separate idea for a feature-length film. They tried to force everything together but each idea cancelled out the others causing there to be nothing of substance left behind. 

One of those ideas is the story of Ted fighting the legal system in order to be recognized as a person by the government so he can adopt a child and retain the rights that were taken from him such as his marriage license and citizenship. A concept like this one has nothing inherently funny about it. There is very little that comes to mind in terms of comedy with a log-line like this. Because much of the film revolves around this central idea -- and because there is hardly anything funny about it --- the jokes that send the snotty Coke into the row in front of you have virtually nothing to do with what is actually happening to the characters. Much like Family Guy's notorious flashbacks, Ted 2 has similar cutaways to scenes that completely stop the movement of the story. 

Another plot-line has to do with a character wishing to exploit Ted by mass manufacturing him for people around the globe if the courts conclude that he is not a person. In order to accomplish this he must find a way to kidnap Ted without the public catching any wind. Once again, there's nothing funny about this. What's even worse is that this plot-line is lazily followed which makes each scene related to it a reminder that it even exists. There is only one funny joke that comes from this plot-line that involves a toy company CEO speaking on a rival toy company. With so little to chuckle at, it seems obvious that this aspect of the story could have been cut entirely without the film losing much of anything.

Lastly, the final plot-line of this movie involves Ted's legal team pursing the help of a top civil rights lawyer in another town after Amanda Seyfried's character, who is a first-time lawyer, drops the ball on winning the initial trial. This aspect of the film comes up after the point to which the entire film was leading up to -- i.e. the initial trial -- which makes the audience feel like they're watching Ted 3 instead of the final act of Ted 2. It is in these final scenes where the humor becomes so spaced out that I considered leaving the theater. The film seemed to have already reached it's conclusion and with less and less Coke coming out of my nose, I had no incentive to remain in my seat.

The movie has real comedic power through the first hour but beyond that it's a film that begins to take it self too seriously and losses its grasp on why the audience showed up in the first place. The performances in the film are fine enough for a film of this nature with Mark Wahlberg being the weakest link. There's a soft spot in my heart for Amanda Seyfried for whatever reason -- I just like her presence -- but she works well in this universe and doesn't seem out of place. Morgan Freeman has a hilarious turn, but only in one scene. With that kind of comedic timing, I wonder what the film would have been if it utilized his character more.

Ted 2, without a doubt, has one of the worst screenplays of the year and because of it's nails-on-a-chalkboard annoyance I can't recommend this film to anyone who has a cinematic appetite more than that of superficial scrapings. Kiah Simons 

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - Film Review

Left to Right: Olivia Cooke, Thomas Man, and RJ Cyler in "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"

Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

Quality (out of 4): ⭐️⭐️1/2

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is the latest offering in a string of movies that have debuted at the Sundance Film Festival that have gone on to win both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award there, but unlike its predecessors (Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Whiplash) this film is wildly empty for its content, distant for its subject, and average for its accolades. 

The film uses the plot device of a much better movie about teens called "The Spectacular Now" (also played at Sundance) which has the main character Greg (played by Thomas Man) writing a letter to the admissions department of a local college explaining why he should be admitted. The body of the letter tells the story of a "doomed friendship" between him and a girl newly diagnosed with leukemia named Rachel whom lives next door. What is frustrating about the film is that it tries really hard to be poignant, heartfelt, truthful, and moving -- and it succeeds on occasions that are few and miles between -- but ultimately ends up as a self-obsessed, void, manipulative story with a few shining moments of real effectiveness. 

Much has been written on the film's constant need to road-map its storytelling beats by insisting upon titles at the beginning of scenes that reflect that scene's content. "Day 90 of Doomed Friendship" and "The Part when ______" capitalize practically every scene. The idea behind this was to poke fun at cliche teen dramas, but it's gets annoying once you realize that you're actually watching a cliche teen drama -- a fact the movie is in complete denial about. It tries so hard not to be a typical love story just to end up being a typical love story. Screenwriter Jesse Andrews thought that if he didn't have his main characters admit that they were in love that he was being inventive and original in the genre. He also goes so far as to have Greg proclaim through narration that "if this was a romantic story we'd be kissing..." but the movie is a romantic story just without love declarations and make-out scenes. 

While I admit that the way teen love is portrayed in the film is closer to reality than most similar movies -- insofar as the characters being conservative about their feelings toward each other -- I can't say that the movie is a winner because that's not what it's really about. The filmmakers use the love subplot to tell us  a story about a young man (Greg) who is so selfish that he can't stop thinking only of himself even when someone close to him is dying. It's an admirable story to tell but with the circumstances that the movie sets up, it's hard to believe that Greg is even a selfish person to begin with. The dying girl in the title is Rachel and at the beginning of the story Greg barely knows her even though they go to the same school and  live close to each other.  He he forced by his mom to offer her some type of companionship which he doesn't want to do because he doesn't know her and the entire act would be disingenuous. He goes along with it despite of this and little by little the happiness of poor Rachel is Greg's responsibility according to the people around him, as if it was his fault she's suffering from a terminal illness.  

The audience is supposed to perceive Greg as selfish for wanting time to himself/nothing to do with Rachel in general but once you realize that Greg was forced to even say two words to her it's easy to understand why Greg isn't enthusiastic about making Rachel's last days the best she's ever had. The story would work much better if Rachel was his sister or mother because it would be hard to excuse a person that didn't comfort their own mother before she died if he/she could. But it couldn't have been a love story if the dying girl was a family member. Or could it? The movie asserts it's not "a touching romantic story" anyway (although it is minus the touching part). 

There is one standout scene in the film when Rachel tells Greg about a life-changing decision as it relates to her illness that actually did come off as honest, and heartbreaking, but one scene cannot make up for an entire film that's preparing for an emotional climax that has no narrative arc to support it. It is downright manipulative in it's final segments by trying to sell us on a watered-down love story finale that comes off just as weird and disingenuous as Greg's initial meeting with Rachel. 

Apart from some funny moments and strong performances across the board, particularly Olivia Cooke who couldn't have been better cast as Rachel and plays her with brutal accuracy of her age and place, the film offers little in terms of cinematography, score, production design, and editing that can distract from its wishy-washy story. I wish there was more to this film because not much really happens and there are glimmers of a good movie underneath the sludge, but I can't judge it on what it could have been. What it is is just another average romantic teen movie.    Kiah Simons

The Best Films of 2015 - so far...

       After six months of cinematic gold, gunk, and everything in between, it is time to reflect upon what the cinema has brought to us up until this point. The first half of 2015 did quite well in providing quality as compared to other years - notoriously 2014 - so I'm excited about what the rest of the year has to offer. As it stands today, here are the best films of 2015:


10. Kingsman: The Secret Service (dir. Matthew Vaughn)

Taron Egerton and Colin Firth in "Kingsman: The Secret Service"

Kingsman: The Secret Service was the first movie of the year that had everyone talking -- mostly about how much they loved it. The movie is not fantastic, but it delivers hand-to-hand action set pieces in a way that is fresh, amusing and entertaining. The spy genre is one that comes with many expectations and plot beats, and Kingsman manages to hit all those beats while throwing in some new tunes to sing along to as well. It's a exuberant picture with energy, style, and panache that features an exhilarating villain sidekick with blades for feet who isn't afraid to use them. It's a great fun popcorn movie if there ever was one.


9. Tomorrowland (dir. Brad Bird)

George Clooney in Disney's "Tomorrowland"

Tomorrowland is a film based on a theme park from the mind of the imaginative and gifted Brad Bird who gave us "The Incredibles" and "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol". While we can expect visual expertise and splendor, what is really surprising about this film is that none of its visuals and awe-factor make it special. In fact, it might be the case that there's just nothing special about it's visuals and action set pieces that Mr. Bird has become known for. Why this movie succeeds is because of the characters and how they are captured and represented by the actors portraying them. Never before has Britt Robertson done such convincing work playing a science nerd who is interested in moral and adventurous behavior from different scientific agencies. George Clooney's performance is light and heavy at once, combining elements of humor and seriousness that I can't say he's done before. Although Robertson and Clooney do excellent work, the real star of the movie is Raffey Cassidy who plays a robot that is programmed to recruit people to Tomorrowland. There isn't an ounce of visual effects to aid her performance and I didn't doubt her robotic interior for a second. The movie does get bogged down in a sloppy message that isn't well thought out but these actors do a terrific job in creating a sense of a real place, time, and urgency.


8. It Follows (dir. David Robert Mitchell)

Maika Monroe in "It Follows"

What makes It Follows stand out above other horror films is that it succeeds in being terribly creepy while consistently amazing on many different technical levels. There are superbly crafted shots in this film beginning with the very first one when we see our main character -- played by Maika Monroe --being chased around her suburban neighborhood by seemingly nothing. The lighting choices and camera work throughout help to establish the film's eerie tone and contribute to the creepiness of this mysterious force that only seems to follow. The score is one of the year's very best (if not the best) and it is used sparingly where it can be most effective. The images in this film will haunt you for days, weeks, or months in my case because the attention to detail which is being used to frighten the audience pays off so well. It's inventive, quirky, timeless, and horrifying.


7. Spy (dir. Paul Feig)

Melissa McCarthy in "Spy"

Who knew this film would be such a winner? I certainly didn't walking into the movie with low expectations but leaving out with an ache in my side from the laughter. Director and Screenwriter Paul Feig packs laughs on top on laughs when he executes a story about a woman who is extremely gifted at her job but whom no one will take seriously -- not even herself. Melissa McCarthy is at the top of her game but no one was funnier in this film than Jason Statham who's comedic abilities should no longer be in question after his turn in this film. Rose Byrne who plays the film's villain is hilarious, menacing and sexy all at the same time and is an excellent compliment to Ms. McCarthy. The scenes they have together are hilarious. What brings this movie above your average comedy is that it doesn't just use the spy movie genre for jokes, but it is as legitimately a spy movie as Kingsman: The Secret Service, therefore the thrills and the jokes are coming at you from all angles at the same time. It's a blast.


6. Chappie (dir. Neil Blomkamp)

Chappie under the influence of gangsters in "Chappie"

What I admire most about Neil Blomkamp is his vision and his affinity for his home. We get both in Chappie -- a story about a child-like robot with full conscience capabilities. Blomkamp is a master of dirt and grime so every frame of Chappie is unpolished in a deliberate way in order for the teeth of the story and setting can sink into our skin. Sharlto Copley's performance as the titular character in the film is the best male performance put on screen so far this year. It's charming, beautiful, and heartfelt as Chappie has to navigate the murky waters of a couple of street gangsters who want to use him to their advantage while trying to please his maker played by Slumdog Millionaire's Dev Patel. The movie takes many surprising and revelatory turns during its final stretch that catch you completely off guard but completely work. It attempts to answer the question of "What is consciousness?' by giving us an answer that is unlike anything I've seen in similar movies. For that, I say Blomkamp has won.


5. While We're Young (dir. Noah Baumbach)

Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts in "While We're Young"

Noah Baumbach brings us another stingingly truthful portrait of modern American life for young adults and the young adults at heart with his original comedy While We're Young. In subject, it's a movie about the lives of documentary filmmakers as their paths cross by chance or perhaps not by chance. Baumbach's humor is very understated and lifelike; something to be admired in the age of Apatow-itis. On top of being a poignant commentary on young adulthood in modern America, it speaks on ambition and the idea of fearing that you're not actually all that you try to tell yourself that you are. Artistic integrity vs. commercial success is addressed here, among other hilarious issues that stretch from sea to shining sea. Despite being a straightforward comedy-drama, the places where the narrative takes the audience is definitely uncharted territory, but a confident captain like Baumbach can steer this cinematic ship to heartbreaking safety, which he does with casual elegance. The year's best dialogue so far, as well as one the best male performances of the year by Stiller give While We're Young it's charm.  Truly a special film.


4. Mad Max: Fury Road (dir. George Miller)

Tom Hardy in "Mad Max: Fury Road"

You will never see anything like Mad Max: Fury Road. A explosive extravaganza from start to finish, about a 2 hour long car chase which isn't anything short of the most visually expressive movie in recent memory. George Miller's love for his work is leaking all over this piece of cinema, for he has put his heart and soul in delivering a work that thrills from A to Z. Tom Hardy does his job to perfection as Max, a pure survivalist that turns into a revivalist over the course of his interaction with Charlize Theron's character Furiosa who has stolen the king's property -- a car full of beautiful women that the King uses to breed with. It's thrill after thrill when the king decides to chase Furiosa and Max through the desert and back again in order to reattain his "property". What the films lacks in character development it makes up for big time in action and splendor that would leave even the most anti-action movie-goers amazed. An exhilarating ride.


3. Unfriended (dir. Levan Gabriadze)

Shelley Hennig in "Unfriended" 

In what is the most surprising film of the year thus far, Unfriended shows us the power of a well-executed screenplay. The idea is rather ambitious: To tell the story of a young girl who committed suicide due to bullying that returns as a cyber ghost that stalks the main characters as they are online video chatting. The entire film from start to finish is told from the perspective of Blaire Lily's computer screen played by Shelley Henning. What is brilliant about the film is it's ability to capitalize on every single click, every window opened or minimized, in order to reveal something about the characters or move the story forward. It is a successful blend of horror and comedy being really funny in one moment and completely terrifying in another. It is the only film this year to have really scared me to the point of not wanting to go online for hours. When a horror film does that, you know it has been successful. It is crazily cleaver and the most inventive horror film I've seen in many years. A fresh addition to the found footage genre that has been souring as of late. If you're one to not be affected by horror movies, this movie will get to you. Trust me. I remember walking out of the theater having known that I've just seen something really special.


2. Ex Machina (dir. Alex Garland)

Alicia Vikander as Ava in "Ex Machina"

Ex Machina is a film that grabs you by the eyeballs and dares you to look away. It's a film that you're constantly trying to figure out. Who's playing who? What's everyone's motive? Is there more to a character than meets the eye? It's a film that will take you places you had no idea you were going at the outset. It's a film that is unpredictable. First time filmmaker Alex Garland splashes onto the scene with this original tale of a software designer played by Oscar Issac who invites one of his employees to his estate to test out what he thinks is a piece of robotic innovation. Her name is Ava, and she might be the world's first conscience robot. It is up to young programmer Caleb played by Domhnall Gleeson to decide if his experience with her makes him believe that she is really alive. If she passes then she will be shown to the world, lauded, praised, and admired. But if she fails? I'll let the movie answer that. The screenwriting here is so tight and structured, leaving just the right amount in the shadows until the appropriate moment of revelation. Alicia Vikander's performance as Ava is one of the year's best so far and this small story with only three characters packs one the hugest punches in its finale that's sure to inspire hours of conversation afterward. An enticing film from start to finish.


1. Inside Out (dir. Pete Docter)

Amy Poehler as the voice of Joy in "Inside Out"

Disney/Pixar's Inside Out is the best film of 2015 so far, and I highly doubt that another film this year will even come close to dethroning this exuberant masterpiece of cinematic art. What makes Inside Out so special is that watching it makes you feel like a child again, it brings back not only personal memories, but memories about being a kid and going to the movies and seeing something that really connects with you on a visceral, emotional, and even physical level. The story takes place inside the mind of an eleven-year-old girl named Riley Anderson as she is uprooted from her home in Minnesota and is placed in a new city on the other side of the country called San Francisco; while her emotions -- Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust -- battle over the right way to control the new circumstances. With Joy and Sadness being launched out of "headquarters" where the emotions operate their duties, the emotions must figure out the appropriate way to return Riley back to normal. It's incredibly inventive and creative with every aspect of the mind fleshed out in a way that not only seem plausible, but accessible and truthful. The attention-to-detail is impeccable with every corner of every frame being planned and thought out to represent Riley's mind. The way the characters move and interact demonstrates once again that Pixar animation is miles ahead of the competition with their animation; not to mention the film is absolutely gorgeous, heartfelt and moving in a real relatable way that few films that are this conceptually complex are. Michael Giacchino's score is something of real beauty and it is the soul of the movie if the characters are the brain. Pete Docter's screenplay is executed in the best way a concept like this could with the comedic timing of a professional, offering some of Pixar's best laughs. Amy Poehler and Phyllis Smith really stand out as they do Academy Award-worthy work as the voices of Joy and Sadness respectfully. This film is one for the history books, standing as one of Pixar's greatest achievements, if not their greatest ever. I still haven't been able to get it out of my head. A true masterpiece if there ever was one. Inside Out is the reason I go to the movies.

WHY NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON ISN'T AS SMART AS HE THINKS

Kiah Simons

Beloved astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson  gave a commencement speech at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst that makes me think that Neil deGrasse Tyson shouldn't give commencement speeches. I feel this way specifically because he is one of the many educated men of our generation that has become a public intellectual, but outside of his area of study he - like the majority of them - is clueless (at least partially).

The following statements were made by Mr. Tyson as he addressed a graduating class of over 5,000 students:

NDT: Your grades, whatever is your GPA, rapidly becomes irrelevant in your life. I cannot begin to impress upon you how irrelevant it becomes. Because in life, they aren't going to ask you your GPA. ... If a GPA means anything, it's what you were in that moment — and it so does not define you for the rest of your life.

KIAH: While it is true that your grades do not define you, it is completely untrue that your grades become irrelevant in your life. Grades function as a measure of how well a particular individual understands and embodies a subject. Because Mr. Tyson was speaking to students who were minutes away from graduating, it is reasonable to assume that these students took courses that are congruent with the career paths that they plan to pursue. A greater knowledge of the different subjects relating to those paths would result in not only the ability to attain the jobs that they studied for, but it would also create higher chances of success in those fields. Could you imagine a medical student that thought that grades didn't matter operating on someone? In addition, the pursuit of good grades serve to teach students hard work, discipline, time management, and priorities - the type of things that affect people for the rest of their lives - and which translate into valuable qualities in the market. While students shouldn't beat themselves up over a B, they should be striving for the best grades that they can possibly achieve.

NDT: The most dangerous people in a free society are those who don't know ... but think you do know, and have power over legislation that would affect others, that is dangerous. Those are the signs of the end of an informed democracy.

KIAH: I would argue that the most dangerous thing in a society is a populace that thinks they know, but don't know. Uninformed politicians are the least of our worries because politicians don't elect themselves to office; people do. When the masses think they have such a firm grasps on subjects such as economics, foreign policy, the ramifications of illegal immigration, taxes, among others, they elect politicians that are in line with those inaccuracies. The end of an informed democracy is when the people start believing rhetoric instead of evidence. Maybe the people should start paying more attention in school as to be a more informed member of society to elect an informed politician. But, oh yeah, grades are irrelevant to Mr.Tyson.

NDT: Science matters. Think about this: Cavemen and women, they had clean air, fresh water, their food was free-range, yet their life expectancy was 35. Something else matters that improves your life expectancy than just the search for clean air and clean water. There's more going on in our lives brought to you by innovations in science and technology that improves your health, your wealth, your well-being. Just consider that before you start saying, 'I don't like science, I don't want science.' Well, move the hell back to the cave.

KIAH: No one with even half a brain ever suggested that science doesn't matter so it baffles me why people like Tyson and many of his colleagues/admirers imply that there are groves of people saying that we shouldn't study science. Quite the contrary, especially since the national climate is in love with students that pursue STEM fields in college (as they should be) and there's more avocation by teachers, politicians, and communities toward these fields. The mistake that Tyson is making is that he's equating scientific knowledge and technology which are seldom related. One of the greatest inventions in human history was the wheel. It made lives infinitely better for generations of humans after. The boat also shares this distinction. The funny thing is that at the time of these inventions, their collective inventors thought that the sun was a God that would only rise if it was happy with humans and that winter was a curse for poor behavior. Innovations in science has only served to help us better understand the world around us (which is very important). What has improved people's health, wealth, and well-being more than anything else is capitalism and technology.

NDT: It had become a pastime to blame politicians for the ills of the world. I understand the urge to do that ... but at the end of the day, the politician is a representative of an electorate.If you have an issue with politicians it's because you have an issue with your fellow citizens who put them there. So if there is a politician who is sure the universe is 6,000 years old, it's because there are people walking among us who believe that. ... The laws of physics affect us all ... whether or not you believe in them.

KIAH: I agreed with Mr. Tyson until he mentioned the 6,000 year-old Earth believers (aka Christians). What Mr. Tyson doesn't understand is that a politicians belief in a 6,000 year-old Earth doesn't affect anybody but the politician himself. But when a politician believes in a policy that supposed to provide affordable health care by ramming the program down the throats of millions of people that were against it when they couldn't even get the functionality of the site working correctly, yet it's supposed to oversee the complicated health issues of millions of people with efficiency -- that obviously affects people. What we need to do is stop worrying about religious beliefs and start worrying about the things that politicians believe that actually affect us in empirical ways.

NDT: I think on some level, role models are overrated. ... Growing up in the Bronx ... had I required as a prerequisite that another black man from the Bronx had become an astrophysicist for me to become one, I'd still be in the Bronx. If you require a role model who looks just like you to be something you wanna be and you can't find one, is that a reason to not be what you wanna be? No!

KIAH: Who has ever suggested that role models have to have the same skin color as the person modeling after them? No one. Roles models are very important for people who feel isolated by their community when it comes to their aspirations. Kanye West has said that one of his biggest role models is Steve Jobs and they are hardly the same color and come from completely different backgrounds. This is another case of Mr. Tyson creating his own fictional world, and then disputing that world as to relay his "wisdom".

NDT: The universe is bigger than you are. That sounds obvious but some people don't really know that.

KIAH: At a college graduation I think a more constructive statement might be, "The universe is bigger than you are, but you shouldn't let that stop you from being all you can be." Instead we get a statement that sounds more like Tyson is trying to say, "Hey, life happens to you and there's nothing you can do to change that."

NDT: We live in a world where not everyone has the urge to help others. ... It is OK to encourage others to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. But if you do, just remember that some people have no boots.

KIAH: Actually, we live in a world where virtually no one has the urge to help others, so what we need to teach people is to help themselves. One the ways we can do that is by encouraging them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps because nobody is going to pull for them. For those that have no boots, I suggest buying a pair. Which is another way of saying that in this great country the United States of America, people have gone from worse poverty than we have now to great successes. Those people not only had no boots, they had no socks. But that didn't stop James Cash Penny (who lived in much worse poverty than is known by most poor people today) to start J.C. Penny in the early 20th century. That didn't stop homeless Tyler Perry from become the highest paid man in Hollywood in 2011. That didn't stop Oprah Winfrey, the victim of countless rapes from becoming America's first black billionaire. Many poor people in America don't face these problems and for the one's that do there is a way for them if they're tough enough. It they can pull themselves up. Sorry Mr. Tyson, but this is America not Pakistan.

It seems to me that Neil deGrasse Tyson would be much better on talking strictly about astrophysics when he speaks at these types of events. When he doesn't we have 5,000 people who admire him and will take his word on every issue outside of his expertise - even when his words make no sense at all.

Link to article : http://mic.com/articles/118058/neil-de-grasse-tyson-just-gave-graduates-these-9-crucial-pieces-of-advice