Not showing at theaters near you

If I made a movie about chlorophyll, no one would make a fuss about it. Well, it would probably cause a stir among leaf-eating insects whose very existence depends upon the nature of this green molecule. But until they can afford the crazy prices of cinema popcorn, filmmakers could only count on income from mainstream paying cinema-goers like you and me. But if I had an undefeated spirit and equally clueless investors, I will insist on making this movie about chlorophyll, focusing on recent findings reported in the BBC on May 9 and published in the journal Advances in Space Research, that there is a link between a rise in the concentration of chlorophyll in coastal waters in areas near epicenters of quakes BEFORE the occurrence of such quakes. Wow, finally a predictor of quakes! Their explanation seems to make so much sense since the grinding of plate tectonics, which is "usually" the known cause of quakes ("usually" because there have been claims in the past, although not in science, that earthquakes are caused by people’s decline in morality), releases heat from below the earth, causing surface temperatures to rise. When this happens, this energy causes a movement of "goodies" from the bottom of the ocean to the surface. These goodies spell an all-you-can-eat buffet for plankton to thrive on. And plankton has chlorophyll-a, which is green, and lots of it was seen in satellite images over areas near the epicenters of quake prior to such quakes such as those that happened in Gujarat, India (2001), Algeria (2002), the Andaman Islands (2002), and Bam, Iran (2003). But unless I convince Dr. Ramesh Singh of the Indian Institute of Technology, who was part of the scientific team to hook up with the great Bollywood filmmakers and convince them that plankton blooms are pregnant with epic film possibilities, I should consider myself lucky that there are things like science pages of newspapers where I can champion the chlorophyll hopefully worthy of Pocahontas’s nature lullabies.

Perhaps, a filmmaker would have better chances with dolphin movies. Everyone loves dolphins and they certainly are far more charming and more intelligent than a good number of elected mammals we have floating around government theme parks. We have all known for a long time now from science that dolphins sing and whistle, but with what science turned up lately, individual credits may have to be made for each and every dolphin who stars in any film. It would probably also need to have its own pool with its own name in it, surrounded by stars, in the tiles below. Researching in Sarasota Bay off Florida’s west coast, a team captured wild bottle-nosed dolphins and recorded their "whistles" and synthesized them into a computer voice. Then, it was played back to the dolphins, to which the dolphins individually responded. What this meant was even if the "voice" changed, the dolphins recognized it was still "calling" their name. These findings are also published in the recent issue of the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and also reported in BBC last May 8.

Oh, but here is probably a more feasible film project – a film about what women find attractive in men! But wait, come to think of it, a 30-second deodorant ad about men and women and you eschew every ratings known in media. Researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of California, Santa Barbara wanted to find out more what women could actually "sense" in a potential mate. Pictures of men were shown to subject women and the women rated the men according to whether they perceive each man to be physically attractive, masculine, kind or "liked children." Then they were asked to rate the "attractiveness" of each man and rate him as a short or long-term partner. The men who rated as "child-loving" were also the same men who rated as the ones the women wanted as "long-term" partners. The women found the rough and rugged kind of men (judged from recorded testosterone levels) to be suitable for short-term "engagements." What I find newsworthy here is not so much that women would rather date some rock star for a night of fun but rather how women could judge the prospects of a long-term relationship just by looking at a man’s face. According to the researchers, it really does not prove "sixth sense" in women but according to a member of the research team, Dr. Dario Maestripieri, would seem to show that women have become "very good at using every piece of information at their disposal when making decisions about mating and relationships." This seems to me that women do not do magic; they just know what to do with all the information staring at them right in the face and make a call.

But if indeed a face paints a thousand words, what do we make of all the fuss about the "codes" in a famous painted picture of a smiling face? First of all, a reminder to government officials, who have at one time or another commented on how horrible the Da Vinci Code book or film is and in the same breath, say that they have not read the book nor intend to watch what they described as a deeply offensive film. To those officials, I recommend a dose of a recent finding in science, which essentially revealed that our "dread" is more of a result of our imagined fears than from real pain. So this means that our government officials are in double woo-woo land – imagining fear about something they have only "imagined" (since they claim to know about it for themselves without having an actual encounter with it such as reading it.) Notwithstanding Dan Brown, whom I think should also seek some professional help in nudging back his ego and literary license to where it belongs, namely in fiction, I think the "authorities" whom we pay to at least read something before they comment on it, better concentrate on the "real" offensive things to our people which we could all probably just shove in overall categories like "government corruption" and "deep poverty" whose cause-and-effect is in every sense, more painfully real than imagined.

If you think that a film based on a book of fiction (I repeat "fiction," which means "not real") could overturn what you consider the very foundations of your own meaning, the problem, I think, is not the overrated fiction but the depths of your own meaning. Could 2,000 of cultivating and enriching a faith not stand the buzz and cinematic nudgings of a two-and-a-half hour film by Hollywood? Even CNN was as curious as everyone was and recently asked the Vatican what it thought of the film and found that even the Vatican is split – some officials thought it was a good read and some thought it was a terrible insult to the Christian faith.

The filmmaker Ang Lee was asked at the opening of his film Brokeback Mountain being offensive to some people. He simply said, "To those who are offended, do not watch it." The Da Vinci Code IS a film, and unless you have an always-on entertainment center directly piped into your head, you have a choice of whether to watch it or not. Go be grown up about it and think for yourself and make your choice.

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